July 21, 2009
Radio-Frequency Identification or RFID is an increasingly common technology which has a tremendous amount of legitimate potential to benefit society and business. There are of course criminal downsides to this technology. There are many reported causes of RFID systems being hacked by international technologically savvy criminals. This is certainly an annoyance today when RFID is in its infancy. But what will be the social and criminal justice impact of RFID when these devices become ubiquitous? What new crimes await us when most inatimate objects have RFID sensors?
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April 28, 2008
While there may be an officer-safety advantage of RFID-tagging human police officers, there certainly may be some unconsidered downsides as well. First the positive. Knowing the location of every officer may allow for the more effective delivery of police services. Dispatchers could send the closest officer to any particular incident. Should an officer become hurt, injured or kidnapped, knowing his location could even prove life-saving. Such a system could also be a useful management tool, as it would allow police supervisors to know which officers responded to a particular location at a particular time. Nevertheless, the negatives of introducing RFID/GPS technology on each individual officer must also be carefully considered. One could certainly understand why police officers might view this technology as an invasion of their privacy. It could and would measure every minute detail of an officer’s day, including how much time they spent in the restroom or talking [...]
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