Future visions

azezil

I've been thinking of what the future may hold, and one idea i've been knocking around is electroic taging...

Electronic tagging:
A voluntary exercise for members of the general public but enforced on people in the custody of the state.

Functionality of the tags:
The potential application of the tags is limitless, at first it may be as simple as recording a person's name, date of birth and nationality. With further development the tag could operate as a unique identifier used to access a database of information on its owner. The database should be state run with different sectors e.g. medical, law enforcement, or retail having access to only certain details. The information could be read simply by walking through a scanning device on entering the premises or by hand held units. The tags could also act as a real time tracking system, which would aid the police and emergency services.

Applications:
Financial transactions and credit transfers - All transactions could be done without the need for physical currency, with would provide increased security for its user, and negates the possibility of being 'held up' or loosing money due to carelessness.

Tracking system - used by rescue and law enforcement services. If you have nothing to hide why worry if someone's watching?

Medical - a persons entire medical history could be made easily accessible for the medical services. With a quick scan the medical personnel would know if the patient suffered from any medical conditions, blood type allergies and so on.

Preventing underage drinking/ smoking - a scanning mechanism at the entrance to a premises would provide a quick an certain means of accessing a persons age.

Need for security:
The need for security is paramount. - The official database should have two is not three back up systems at geographical diverse locations. No one manufacturer should fully construct any part of the system. Any attempts to tamper with the device should be recorded and reported to the authorities by the device.

Kell

I often considered the same sort of things and agree with them 100%. The only thing is that you will have the same civil liberty muppets as say that age identity cards is an infringement of civil liberties, saying same for said scheme.

Civil Liberties- man gets sentenced to death for raping and killing and the liberties cronies come out to complain about how shocking it is that someone could die at the hands of the law. Tis truly a society with a fúcked sense of right and wrong.

Shinji

Electronic tagging of offenders isn't a bad idea - it prevents people skipping bail or parole. I guess you could also put a permanent electronic tag on sex offenders who are at risk of reoffending.

Putting them onto normal members of the public is a stunning breach of personal privacy, however. I guess if they're voluntary, then fine. You won't catch me volunteering though, and you won't catch me living in any country which enforced this system.

There are better ways of handling the financial and medical benefits you talk about which are significantly less invasive. Retinal scans spring to mind.

If you have nothing to hide why worry if someone's watching?

I don't have anything to hide today. Who knows when the authorities will decide that I do, however? If the day ever came - and let's hope it doesn't - when the ruling body of my nation decided that I was out of line for publicly criticising them or voting for someone else other than them, I don't want to have put tools in their hands to make the job of suppressing dissent easier.

You know the way that anyone with a clue about the issue of child abuse tends to point out to the raving loony brigade that vastly more children are abused by family members than by strangers?

Well, here's a poser for you right-wing types who cast such scorn on the civil liberties brigade....

Taking the population of the world as a whole, how many people do you think die each year at the hands of their own governments compared to those that die at the hands of criminals?

daveirl

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article6

Death penalty: I disagree with it, mainly for JRR Tolkien's reasons in "Lord of the Rings". I believe that humans should deny ultimate power; as such, I agree that we cannot decide on a man's life as a punishment, since if we show mercy afterwards, we cannot return it to him.

Electronic tagging: Again, I disagree. Too much of a violation of civil liberties (and I'm a right-winger). It gives too much power to those who can wield it - if we have it in pubs, that's anyone on the staff these days - and I do not trust the manufacturer or installer. Better to see our taxes going on schools and hospitals than "INGSOC tags".

daveirl

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yellum

Electronic Tagging and Tracking is happening right now anyway in a roundabout way. Our mobiles show our location to the nearest cell and as we have found out all our movements have been stored in a database as ordered by the governments.

RFID tags are going to becoming very prevalent soon when the cost of an ID falls to around a cent. Everything we buy and maybe even wear is going to have one of these low power radio tags which communicate to points of sale and also to each other.

Gillettes been the first to start using them. They've ordered a billion of them and they'll be used now for shipping crates but will eventually move on to the individual packages.

We're not at the stage where our eyes are scanned as we go about our business but it will happen soon enough. At least we won't have the chip under the skin like some people though. Biometrics will work instead. Screwed by our own uniqueness.

daveirl

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yellum

Ooops yeah thats what I mean. Low output power. The military applications that use these in the smart dust technology is just scary.

Spray a battlefield with them and you can see the movements of every soldier.

Kell

Originally posted by daveirl
Do a search and look up about the Illinois govener commuting the death sentence of loads of prisoners because there were so many mistrials.
That is why the death penalty is ****ed up.

Ah, but the obvious response to that would be to say that tagging would bring a huge amount of transparancy to the whole justice system. Someone cant stand up in court and say "Sorry your honor, but I wasnt there on the night in question" when the tag proves they were thus eliminating mis-trials and wrong judgements.

Also, a few have pointed out that the authorities would abuse the power. But if the ability to finger non authoritative people abounds so too would the ability of the authorities to finger people who fúck the system from the inside. Society is getting less and less receptive to authority abusing power or engaging in corruption. Why else are all these time wasting tribunals going on when a chip could have proved guilt in a heart beat?

To those who have cited the death penalty as fúcked up, does the same rationale still apply if the perp of a crime is actually caught in the act of say killing an MP, official whatever? Why should anyone who has stolen someones right to life be granted any rights whatsoever? Thats a bit of "one rule for you and another for me".

Point taken about citing dissent about a goverment and the powers that be taking offense to it, but at the end of the day (taking Ireland as a speicifc example) the law is the law and if you break it you should get fúcked for it. Are all of those who disagree with tagging also in favour of criminals walking scott free from court rooms when they have obviously stepped outside the confines of the law?

azezil

Originally posted by azezil
The database should be state run with different sectors e.g. medical, law enforcement, or retail having access to only certain details

Fears about authorites knowing too much about who you are and when you have are pointless, even now the guardi know a great deal about you, they have access to your account details, where you live, work and so on. You can't change that, its the society we choose to live in thus i don't see being tracked such a major leap.

I don't have anything to hide today. Who knows when the authorities will decide that I do, however? If the day ever came - and let's hope it doesn't - when the ruling body of my nation decided that I was out of line for publicly criticising them or voting for someone else other than them, I don't want to have put tools in their hands to make the job of suppressing dissent easier.

Recent trends in social development don't support such a notion, it doesn't seem so outlandish because of popular media developing the idea but I feel we've nothing to fear in this reguard.

Shinji

Recent trends in social development don't support such a notion, it doesn't seem so outlandish because of popular media developing the idea but I feel we've nothing to fear in this reguard.

Oh, well, if you think we're safe then that's just fine. Bring on the electronic tags, the mass-storage of my email, phone calls and web browsing habits for the perusal of every government official, the widespread availability of my medical, tax and voting records to anyone who wants to see them, and hell, install security cameras in my home so my local police force can be sure to see everything I get up to while you're at it. Oh, and before you go, can you make sure that all my in-store and online purchases are kept in a massive database for marketing purposes, and that the government can access the list of books I've ordered from Amazon so that they can get a feel for my political views? Cheers!

And I tell you what - if it all goes horribly wrong... We'll just blame you, Azezil.

yellum

Yeah U bastard Azezil

JustHalf

How many people have actually thought about criminals and businesses gaining access to this system? Its perfectly plausible. I'm less concerned about the government tracking me than these people.

Shinji

Given that our government these days seems to be mostly made up of those two elements - criminals, and business interests - I'm not sure what the distinction here is