No, the government is not proposing to inject the public with tracking microchips

We’ve been asked to check an image of a letter, claiming to be from Boris Johnson, which says: “I am personally writing to you in order to alert you to a new government policy, in which we are proposing that all UK residents will be required to wear a RFID microchip from January 1st 2021.”

The letter is fake. No such policy is being proposed.

RFID stands for radio-frequency identification, which is a type of tagging technology, already used by retailers to track their inventory, to measure timings in sporting events and for pet microchips. 

It is possible to inject people with RFID implants, but this is by no means a government initiative. For example, in Sweden, several thousand people are believed to have chosen to have the implants, though the government has nothing to do with the trend.

Clues that this letter is fake

The letter is addressed ‘Dear Citizen’ and is dated 9 June 2020, suggesting it was sent out to a large number of people recently, yet there have been no reports of this. A quick web search shows the story hasn’t been covered by media outlets—something you would expect to happen if such a story were true. Letters that the Prime Minister has actually sent to the public are published on the government’s website—and this letter is not among them.

The image of the letter is incredibly blurry, which doesn’t prove it is fake, but can be an indication that an image may not be what it seems. 

Also, the signature does not match Boris Johnson’s signature on previous letters.