Comments on: Prisoners chipped under their skin with RFID http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/16/prisoners-chipped-under-their-skin-with-rfid/ Mobile and Locative Media and Urban Culture Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:27:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: michiel http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/16/prisoners-chipped-under-their-skin-with-rfid/comment-page-1/#comment-72 michiel Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:34:51 +0000 http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/16/prisoners-chipped-under-their-skin-with-rfid/#comment-72 Hi, thanks for your insightful comment. You are right to point out that coverage is never 100% (and off course real pathological cases won't be deterred by this). You bring up a very interesting and relevant point which I tried to hint at in the article: with each added layer of technological complexity, the chance of failure also increases. The question is: should we accept that such serious matters as the penitentiary system could (and eventually will) be compromised by the possibility of technological failure and/or 'human factors' (either willingly - crackers! - or unwillingly)? Hi, thanks for your insightful comment. You are right to point out that coverage is never 100% (and off course real pathological cases won’t be deterred by this). You bring up a very interesting and relevant point which I tried to hint at in the article: with each added layer of technological complexity, the chance of failure also increases. The question is: should we accept that such serious matters as the penitentiary system could (and eventually will) be compromised by the possibility of technological failure and/or ‘human factors’ (either willingly – crackers! – or unwillingly)?

]]> By: Watching Them, Watching Us http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/16/prisoners-chipped-under-their-skin-with-rfid/comment-page-1/#comment-44 Watching Them, Watching Us Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:06:19 +0000 http://www.themobilecity.nl/2008/01/16/prisoners-chipped-under-their-skin-with-rfid/#comment-44 You are correct to see this impractical Government plan as another attempt at a Panopticon. Except, of course, that implantable RFID tags are vastly inferior to the existing combined mobile phone and GPS ankle tags, especially in terms of range, and tamper resistance. These ankle tags are already as small as they can be - which is still far too large to be implanted safely under the skin. However, even the existing trials of such mobile phone / GPS ankle tags have been a disaster, due to the failures of the privatised call centre monitoring systems and the financial and political disincentive to actually send prisoners who tamper with their tags back to prison. Mobile Phone and GPS satellite coverage of dense urban builtup environments is nowhere near 100 per cent, due to tall buildings, trees, rain or snow etc. Such radio reception black spots do not matter too much to normal, voluntary, mobile phone users, but they make it impossible to enforce a "prison without walls" on unwilling or pathologically driven prisoners. See: Spy Blog - <a href="http://spyblog.org.uk/2008/01/independent_on_sunday_ministry_of_injustice_plans_to_verichip_and_release_prison.html" rel="nofollow">Independent on Sunday - Ministry of (In)Justice plans to VeriChip and release prisoners</a> and The Register - <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/14/prisoner_chipping_scheme/" rel="nofollow">Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners</a> You are correct to see this impractical Government plan as another attempt at a Panopticon.

Except, of course, that implantable RFID tags are vastly inferior to the existing combined mobile phone and GPS ankle tags, especially in terms of range, and tamper resistance.

These ankle tags are already as small as they can be – which is still far too large to be implanted safely under the skin.

However, even the existing trials of such mobile phone / GPS ankle tags have been a disaster, due to the failures of the privatised call centre monitoring systems and the financial and political disincentive to actually send prisoners who tamper with their tags back to prison.

Mobile Phone and GPS satellite coverage of dense urban builtup environments is nowhere near 100 per cent, due to tall buildings, trees, rain or snow etc. Such radio reception black spots do not matter too much to normal, voluntary, mobile phone users, but they make it impossible to enforce a “prison without walls” on unwilling or pathologically driven prisoners.

See: Spy Blog – Independent on Sunday – Ministry of (In)Justice plans to VeriChip and release prisoners and The Register – Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners

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