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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.""

3 of 511 comments (clear)

  1. This is not entirely a joke. by macshune · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Although the story is an exaggeration of the actual program, which does not use RFID, there is a real program called Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) being developed by the Department of Housing and Development. From my cursory glance, it seems as though it's a program to collect data on homeless in the name of cutting down crime and assisting them, rather than full-on movement tracking (think of the infrastructure costs!). Anyhow, EPIC discusses it here

    1. Re:This is not entirely a joke. by paxmark1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Was posted on previously - /. August 19th. Me, I know it is a April fools joke. However, I lived with the homeless for 6 years. Many of the people I lived long term with were either Korean War vets or Vietnam War vets. I found that easier than doing the family side end of it. You never get it out of your head the eyes of some of the homeless kids. It has been 13 years since I lived with the homeless. Best thing I ever did was sell my homeless shelter (Rufus Jones House) to Catholic Social Services for $5. St. Joseph's house has been full ever since of homeless families. And so it is an April Fools' joke. It will be no joke if trends in Yank politics continue, signing off, one US citizen working on landed residency in Canada.

  2. Re:One step closer to a Gattacan Society.... by iminplaya · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The homeless are the only group that's not being tracked at the moment.
    All the rest of you are already being tracked by your:
    credit card
    membership card (wall mart, sams, grocery store, etc.)
    utility bills
    bank
    employer(time cards, drug testing, etc.)
    state ID
    IRS
    ISP
    slashdot(you never know)
    Did I miss anything?

    --
    What?