Over the weekend a concerned Swiss man emailed Rob Curtis (Gear Scout) and I about a story being run on TV and online by the Swiss National Television. The story said that Sphinx Arms (part of KRISS Arms) had developed a novel gun tracking technology that could be embedded inside guns and which would allow individual weapons to be tracked from the air. The technology seems to be some type of RFID technology, possibly used in conjunction with some type of microstamping.

On Sunday night I emailed the public relations agency that handles PR for KRISS Arms (USA) asking for a statement. They told me they had not heard about this Nano-ID technology and on Monday morning they issued this statement …

Sphinx Arms denies the information provided during a segment of the Swiss National Television’s news, wrongly stating that it had developed a ground-breaking technology to be used for firearms and ammunition tracing. This technology has been developed by Nano-ID Security Systems, a Swiss based company, which has requested Sphinx Arms to test and evaluate this technology only in conjunction with a project for sensitive material tracing and authentication in Switzerland. One of the key features of this technology is to prevent alterations or defacing of serial numbers.

Sphinx Arms confirms that no identification solution has been deployed and will not be deployed in any of its firearms produced and exported to countries out of Switzerland …

This firm denial would have been enough to put my mind at ease but then the ever-vigilant Rob Curtis discovered that Nano-ID and KRISS are sister companies owned by the same group and who share a building …

It turns out that while Sphinx didn’t technically develop the system, GearScout has learned there are strong ties between Kriss Arms Group (Sphinx Arms’ parent company) and Nano-ID Security, essentially making them sister companies. The companies share the same office building in Nyon, Switzerland and are part of the same Gamma Applied Visions Group Holding company chaired by Andreas Jebsen.

It would have been better for the company to have come clean and admit they were sister companies. This omission calls into question the rest of their carefully worded statement.

I call on KRISS USA to make another statement addressing the fact they are a gun company assisting a sister company developing gun-tracking technology. The “don’t worry, we won’t export it” excuse has never satisfied US consumers and I doubt it ever will.