Posting Date: May 17, 2003

GPS implant makes debut -- "Once inserted into a human, the device can be tracked by Global Positioning Satellite technology and the information relayed wirelessly to the Internet, where an individual's location, movements and vital signs can be stored in a database for future reference." (Comments: The implant could easily feed The Ghost.)

Reader Comments...

If true, this raises the political and civil liberties stakes enormously.

Dangers - easy to identify.

Benefits (a few of possibly thousands):
* saving victims of heart attacks, strokes, accidents, assualts etc. which happen while they are alone.
* making it possible to realise into "normal" life people with psychoses which are controllable provided the patients stick to the medication schedule.
* getting minor offenders out of prisons - beats electronic tagging hollow.
* ensuring that violent spouses stay away from their victims.
* easily verifiable / refutable alibis.

The really big achievement would be to prevent the benefits from becoming the thin end of the totalitarian wedge.

Posted by: Philip Chalmersp on May 18, 2003 03:51 PM

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