Proposal for UK Prisoners to be Given RFID Implants 188
Raisey-raison writes "There is a proposal in the UK to implant "machine-readable" microchips under the skin of thousands of offenders in an effort to free up more space in British jails. The article states that uses are being considered both for home detention, as a means to enforce punishment, as well as for sex offenders after their release. Many view this as a slippery slope leading to much wider use; starting as a purely voluntary act and gradually becoming more compulsory, it would endanger human rights and privacy. There are also health questions involved, given that long-term studies have linked similar implants to cancer in lab mice and rats. Ironically, the same technology has been proposed for medical purposes as well. In the USA, some state agencies have already made decisions about this issue.
Its just criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Tomorrow children. In a generation or 2, everyone will have them.
And if america did this (Score:1, Insightful)
Well ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Maybe it's just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes perfect sense to me! (Score:4, Insightful)
After all, it's not like RFID chips could be swapped, erased, removed and as we all know, relying on technology to enforce behavior has never failed. That's why DRM is so popular and electronic passports are completely unhackable, and even if they were hackable, it's not like people get used to the new systems and forget to do the most basic of checks.
Also, the social repercussions for putting these in inmates raises no problems, all you need to do is look at the great success the US has had with the sex offender registry in rehabilitating people.
I can't find a single reason not to do this. Go Britain!
WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? It took me a whole 2 seconds to think of all of these, how has this idea made it this far?
Re:Well ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
They won't force them on us, they will just make it really inconvenient to us, pussies, to live without it.
[/macho trip]
Re:This is /. - how long before chip mods? (Score:4, Insightful)
The market for pirated DVDs couldn't exist without the blanks. Perhaps a third or so are created in factories in China - but the rest are purchased from the usual sources and diverted to illicit copying. What's to keep chip manufacturers from supplying the black market?
Want to consider what would happen if the chips were really tightly controlled? There would be a market for chips forcibly extracted from the original "owner."
At root, it is a stupid idea - but my pets have them. Now, if the animal control folks would just buy the scanner we lobbied for (and, budgeted two years ago) so that a lost/runaway could be returned....
In short, the barriers to adopting this policy are formidable and the end result is far from certain.
Re:What is so wrong with current monitoring system (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Or maybe it will stop at just criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone is a criminal (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Or maybe it will stop at just criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or maybe it will stop at just criminals. (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me: if I hold an apple in the air and let it go, will it fall to the ground, or hang in mid air?
I think you will agree with me that it will fall to the ground. Why do we predict this? Because of a long history of observing similar cases. We know that unsupported objects tend to fall. We've seen it happen so many times that we have developed a sophisticated theory describing this behaviour, and we call it gravity.
Now, just as we can observe the behaviour of unsupported objects near the surface of the Earth, we can also observe the behaviour of unscrupulous politicians. We've seen them on countless occasions introducing some awful violation of civil rights, and excusing it because it's only for terrorists, for criminals, for paedophiles, whatever. And we've seen them afterwards gradually extending the scope of this violation. Once the principle is admitted, it's just a question of haggling over the details. And no politician will ever be the one to reduce the scope of police powers, because then they look soft on crime and get the blame when some lunatic shoots up a school.
I'd prefer that it be called a ratchet effect, rather than a slippery slope, but the principle is the same, and it derives not from formal logic but from empirical observation of politics and politicians. Dismissing it as a logical fallacy is as ludicrous as dismissing gravity on the same grounds.
Gradual Acceptance could happen (Score:3, Insightful)
Depends on the particular subject. In this case, it's somewhat clear to me that gradual acceptance might occur, and that we should thus not accept it.
First, we tag criminals, maybe even only those who accept it. After a few years, there are some success stories, and it becomes mandatory, it's just criminals after all. People see that nothing bad seems to happen, and a few well-publicised cases occur where the tags prevented a crime from happening. So then people start using them as batches, for entry in clubs and similar stuff. It's cool to get a tag, you get to feel a bit like a criminal, you impress your friends (did it hurt? wow, let me feel!). Next, some people tag their children. After all, it makes them save, and you can always remove it later, and it didn't do anything bad to all those cool people. But of course, you don't remove it later, it's convenient to just leave it in. Then, some kid gets rescued because of his tag, and next thing you know, you get some kind of tax reduction if you tag your kid. Some more years, and it's mandatory with the option to remove it when you reach a certain age. Then, that option disappears.
One huge step will not be accepted by the people. A ton of small steps which all seem logical and inconsequential very well might be.
Ads for drugs, legal drugs (Score:3, Insightful)
Dude, that already occurs. Did you go to any kind of club recently?
Fully legalizing drugs would at least regulate advertisment and control quality.
Depends on the drug in question. In some countries, there are plans to legalize ownership and growing of cannabis (within defined limits), while selling it remains illegal. "Legal" doesn't necessarily mean that you have to allow companies to produce and supply the product. Might as well just mean you aren't going to criminalize the users.
Re:You're already tracked with CC#, SIN, medical, (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to have reinforced my concern.
I am not part of the hive. I do not always think the current fashionable thoughts. That is good, as far as I'm concerned.
My post responded to your question, specifically, "What's the huge issue for abuse?". The huge issue for abuse is that the act of implanting an RFID tag in someone against their will is abuse. The reasons of the objector are irrelevant.
Your original post seemed to make the assumption that there is no harm in having the tags implanted, although there is some evidence to the contrary, and that the only reasons people might have for objecting are religious or to do with privacy. I presented another. I don't see why I should have to fucking well have a foriegn object implanted under my skin. I see that as abuse. I think it is criminal. If they can already track me, good. That's all they fucking need then, isn't it?
Maybe I am creating an "us and them" situation here, but sometimes that happens in a world where we are not all livestock.
Re:Its just criminals (Score:3, Insightful)
They already tag people so they don't have to lock them up despite the fact that tags obviously don't work very well.