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Homeless to be Implanted with Subdermal RFID Tags

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the its-about-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Politech has the scoop on the Bush administration's plans to forcibly implant RFID tags into homeless people in participating U.S. cities. Here's an excerpt from the UPI article: "The miniscule RFID tags are no larger than a matchstick and will be implanted subdermally, meaning under the skin. Data from RFID tracking stations mounted on telephone poles will be transmitted to police and social service workers, who will use custom Windows NT software to track movements of the homeless in real time... A second phase of the project, scheduled to be completed in early 2005, will wirelessly transmit live information on the locations of homeless people to handheld computers running the Windows CE operating system.""

5 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. OK, enough is enough. by zangdesign · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, Bush is evil, but I really doubt he's that evil.

    This sounds like someone's idea of a very bad joke.

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    To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
  2. Not actually too far from reality by sleeeper · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As someone who manages state homeless grant programs, I have to salute this as very clever. The federal government (HUD/HHS) is acutally pushing these types of tracking systems, albeit in the form of the somewhat less invasive new requirment for Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS).

    I am invloved in an effort to produce an open source HMIS, so that if we are required to have tracking systems, at least they will be inexpensive and under the control of non-commercial entities. You can see a demo of the open HMIS at: homeless-mis.net It uses PHP and Postgres (or MS-SQL if you like that sort of thing....)

    The idea of integrated information systems actually started with homeless advocates that wanted to improve services through coordinated service delivery. But, like any tool, HMISs can be mis-used, and sometimes you wonder what motiviates these federal requirements.

  3. Honestly now... by Bagels · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I sat through all of the crap that's been posted today due to AF, but this is just plain not in good taste. Invasion of privacy by RFID is safe to poach on - maybe one along the lines of Dilbert (PHBs using RFID to track workers) - but the subject of homelessness just plain isn't funny. Reminds me a bit of the TV show that paid homless folks to fight each other...

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    --- Bwah?
  4. Tracking the homeless? by TrentL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why spend the money when it's cheaper to just ignore them like we do now?

  5. Re:Because by bukamalan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bush would never do this. The poor don't give campaign contributions so why help them and making the poor into meat patties would hurt our cattle growers who do give campaign contributions.