For the past three years a startup company out of San Diego, California, named Somark Innovations has been producing, marketing and selling what they describe as “GPS enabled ink that removes the need for physical tag tracking devices.” They are currently being used on a number of animals for tracking. Daniel Mandernach, IT Director of Jub Data Technologies Chicago told Bikya Masr that “there are disturbing implications in this type of technology both from an information technology perspective as well as from a overall global health viewpoint.” The ink is being marketed currently to medical research facilities as LabStamp. This technology enables handheld devices to track this tattooed ink on any object living or non organic, for up to an extended radius similar to the GPS range of a mobile phone. These so called GPS ink tattoos are then tagged onto lab rats, mice, and livestock on corporate farms across the globe. The most disturbing, and ambiguous, aspect of this technology is that the chemical formula of the RFID ink is not being released from Somark Innovations, so whatever is in it, be it highly toxic irradiated materials, or something even worse, is not known to the public. It is also unknown what ill effects this tattoo ink will have on the laboratory and farming animals that have been tagged for monitoring and tracking. Somark Innovations began in 2005, and is currently located at the Center for Emerging Technologies in St. Louis, Missouri. The firm has begun to license this technology to other distribution channels, marketing it for dogs, cats, poultry cuts, and even governmental tracking devices for both soldiers and prisoners. The question at hand here is clear, regardless of whether one stands for ethical treatment of animals, or not. Why has the chemical formula for this ink been released? Patent laws in the United States might disallow such a suggestion, but for the betterment of animal and human safety alone, this technology needs to be tested and regulated more sufficiently, to assess any dangerous side effects or radiation poisoning that might occur as a side effect. Co-Founder of Somark Mark Pydynowski has been quoted as saying that the ink contains no metals of any sort, and can be invisible or pigmented into a color. He also went on to state that the ink is so effective that it has other, perhaps criminal uses such as creating invisible ink fake fingerprint tattoos for either covert governmental operations or otherwise. Is America comfortable with the fact that Pydynowski will not release the ingredients of this potentially harmful ink? Serious moral, ethical, and environmental issues are raised with Somark's new “magic ink.” Co-founder Pydynowsk could not be reached by Bikya Masr for comments. BM
