2004-03-03

Woman surrenders after girl found alive

Last night I was struggling inmsomnia trying to get tired to get sleep browsing the internet, and I found this news. I think as a parent that this is one of the most difficult things to face, to loose your children or your loved ones to a criminal that abducts them.


That made me think again of a conversation that I had with a friend in Ecuador few days ago who is getting into the bussiness of security tags to track products and perhaps in the near future to have it implanted under your skin to follow you while you shop, visit the doctor or to pay at the cashier without ever taking out a credit card.

I am worried about privacy issues as any other libertarian but I have to admit that I find more benefits than problems in having such a device. Specially if you live in countries outside of the USA where the chances of being abducted are certainly higher (although Child abductions like the one I mentioned at the beginning are far too common here in the US). A product that allows you to be tracked via GPS like the one offered by a Mexican company is surely a hit product.

Although some people are already developing devices to block them to protect people's privacy, in the end I believe that the devices designed to track down people when they are in danger, will have overriding mechanisms to avoid the blocking and transmit the finding data. I think that the current discussion from the Activists for privacy or the Lawmakers should not be whether this kind of devices should exist or not or if they should be regulated, but rather how to protect yourself from being spyied by the government or marketing companies and how to use the technology for your protection and best interest.





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