RFID tags for the mentally ill
These are one of the ‘crime fighting’ and ’safety’ measures being proposed as reported here.
I am speechless. This is unbelievable. I know this government’s mental health agenda is disastrous and dangerous for those who are mentally ill, but this takes the biscuit.
Not only is it based on a totally untrue characterisation of mental illness I don’t think its stretching it too far to draw similarities between tagging homosexuals (especially considering many, even today, still believe homosexuality is a mental illness) or even a religious group.
It may be more hi-tech than a visible badge, but its just as insidious. RFID is readable at a distance, but not a great one. What other purpose could it serve than legitimising discrimination? Firstly through the health services (where discrimination already occurs at times) and government agencies but expanding to private individuals as the technology to read the chips becomes more readily available.
How about this for an extension of the principle:
Everyone who is diagnosed with an STD is given a chip, because there have been a few cases of people deliberately infecting others with their STD. Then everyone can have a reader to ‘check’ someone they are about to sleep with. It will protect them from harm, it must be good.
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January 19th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Worrying if what you say is true. However, having looked at the report upon which it was based (http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/policy_review/documents/crime.pdf),
I think that article was a little on the sensational side. The report lists numerous approaches to crime that have been trialled in different countries throughout. One of these is:
* More sophisticated monitoring techniques also in place, e.g. trial of Radio Frequency Identification Chips for mentally ill in the U.S., 2006.
It does not say that the Government are proposing to do that here. Other illiberal measures that they are introducing or mooting, such as SCPOs, VOOs, the DNA database, the Children’s Index, ID cards, and most prominently in recent days the relaxation of privacy laws to allow data-sharing are more immediate and realistic concerns.
Ian
SELECT Privacy
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