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Social media users have been sharing content online from an article entitled “NBC NEWS: By the end of the year all Americans will receive a Microchip implant!” This is false: NBC has not made any such report.
Examples can be seen here and here .
The article makes spelling, grammar and factual errors, for example, calling Virginia a country ( here ). It also makes further secondary claims beyond the scope of this check.
The article includes video from a 2007 NBC special report predicting what technological advancements would be made in the next 10 years, visible youtu.be/1YJsxMcAJoA . Anchor Brian Williams can be heard saying: “Life in the U.S. in 10 years’ time. By that time, there may be all kinds of new ways to safeguard and identify all those things that make each of us unique. Our faces, even our fingerprints, even our eyes.”
Journalist Tom Costello continues the report on “the future of technology”. Microchips are mentioned as a possible future way to identify people in a hospital emergency. The report also discusses facial recognition technology and fingerprint scans to allow users to open doors and pay for groceries.
The images in the false post are, clockwise from the top-left, Williams during a newscast with a background image Reuters couldn’t identify (but not taken from the video in question), a 2002 Getty photograph of a microchip called VeriChip ( here ), a photoshopped image of a man’s hand ( here ), and a Reuters photograph of a contraceptive implant ( here ).
The 2007 NBC report explored possible developments in biometric technology by 2017. At no time in the video does NBC state “all Americans will receive a Microchip implant” by 2017, or by 2020.
False. NBC has not reported that all Americans will be microchipped by the end of 2020.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.