Is very common in movies when an animal gets missing to see that the owners can track the animal using their smartphone, and thanks to the microchip that had been implanted in their animal, they are able to track his precise location in real time. But this is totally false.
Microchips identify cats: they can’t track location. Location-tracking devices are available on the market, but they are far too big to be injected in the scruff of the neck. These tracking devices can be attached to a collar, or placed on a harness, but they cannot be permanently implanted. The pet microchips that are used cannot be used to track location: this is a myth. A microchip only achieves one simple task: storing and transmitting a digit number.
So a microchipped cat carries an “unique” number, and that’s all. The microchip does not carry any extra information and it doesn’t have the capacity to transmit the pet’s location. If a cat who has a microchip is lost and someone finds her and if the person who finds the cat takes the cat at the vet, The vet will check if the cat has a microchip using a microchip scanner. The scanner displays a number – the microchip number – on its screen. Then the vet will look on the internet in an official database, he will search if the microchip is registered there and if yes, this is the way to find out the owner’s name, address, phone number and email address. So Microchips can identify cat but they can’t track their location.