While doing research on how to deal with the awful proprietary AVID RFID chips implanted in American pets, I came across a brilliant site called Max Microchip. Here’s my favorite part:

Your reaction to the rec.pets-2005a standard might be something like this, and I would say understandably so: “I bought the Encrypted readers and tags for my operation years ago because the Kennel Club accepts it for identification requirements, it was readily available, friends recommended it, and it works great. Now you tell me that each dog has a different number that’s the real number? It looks like a Bogus Code to me.” That’s one point of view. But consider the point of view of the pet rescuer, (meaning, anyone who tries to find the owner of a stray pet) who may find one of the dogs from the Puppy Farm after it has been adopted and then has run away from home. He might say, “You didn’t ask me if encryption was a good idea. I can easily read what this dog’s chip is transmitting, but if the pet registry requires me to make my report with the result of a secret algorithm that only certain reader manufacturers know, that’s like asking me to translate a collar tag into an obscure ancient dialect of Chinese. The open technology reading is the animal’s true identifying characteristic. Anything else is a Bogus Code.” The pet rescuer’s point of view is the one that deserves to carry the day, because he’s always been the volunteer who makes the whole system work. (I would suggest that if you have a pet with an “Encrypted”-type transponder, you might want to check with your registry to find out if they will be accepting found pet reports by open technology such as rec.pets-2005a, or continue to accept only the proprietary codes.)

Max really begs the question of whether the encryption was meant to protect the system from losing market share or to help protect the pets/owners.