HIV/AIDS Sufferers to be Tagged With Tracking Devices
November 26, 2008 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Misc. Gadgets
Lawmaker John Manangsang, seeking to curb his province’s high-rate of HIV infections, has proposed a law where HIV/AIDS patients will be implanted with microchips to facilitate their tracking. The plan is to stay on top of their location, and “punish” them if they infect a healthy person.
How knowing someone’s location will help curb the spread of AIDs isn’t clear, unless you use that information to maintain constant surveillance, in which is very wrong. It’s easy to understand Manangsang’s reasons for pushing this program, but before we know it people could be implanted with RFID chips simply because they suffer from the common cold.
In other words, once the Indonesian province of Papua gets its way, what’s to stop the rest of the country implementing this program? With an increasingly generic set of criteria at that? And of course, who will watch the watchers and prevent abuse? Since this controversial issue has a lot to do with technology, let’s seek the advice of techie-deity Jean Luc Picard:
True isn’t it? Once the ball gets rolling…
