August 22, 2006
I Am Not A Number - Tracking Australian Prisoners With Wearable RFID Tech
The future Alexander Maconochie Centre prison in Australia is planning to track their inmates using RFID. Once the bidders are selected and the program implemented (and the prison built), prisoners will wear a braclet or anklet. Guards will have a pager. This will supposedly allow prisoners to move around the prison within a certain perimeter without escorts. The prison's open date is early 2008. [via Australian IT]
The RFID equipment will be supplied by Telstra, who are conducting their own RFID pilot project and are looking for both SMBs and enterpises to participate. A number of state prisons, including Ohio and California, in the US are already tracking prisoners with RFID. There are also rumors that a European (Nordic) country implanted RFID chips into prisoners against their will.
Without diving deep into conspiracy theory, I'll say that history has shown that prisoners are often the subject of secret experiments sanctioned by government. I live in a town where one US intelligence agency conducted secret shock therapy treatments on prisoners. This wasn't revealed until many decades later. I'm hoping that prisons will stick with the wearable RFID devices that a growing list of manufacturers are making.
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