By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 1992, The Syracuse Newspapers
Japanese companies have developed a revolutionary tracking
system that can keep tabs on any individual.
This system, promoted by Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunication,
was originally designed to provide directions to pedestrians in
Japan's crowded cities. A special radio signal can activate a
device worn on the pedestrian to announce the location of such
things as hospital entrances and street crossings.
The device is able to "talk" to the pedestrian from
a built-in speaker and includes a small display screen that can
be used to show text or simple maps. It works by inductive radio
signals, which need only a tiny amount of battery power and work
inside tunnels and buildings.
The system is fully interactive - that is, it can both receive
information from transmitters located in such places as buildings
and sidewalks and send information to inductive receivers.
It is this second function that has led to the development of
what Japanese researchers call the "man location system."
It is still in the primitive stages now, but with government
funding behind it, the system is likely to be improved over the
next few years.
According to Tadakazu Yamaoka, an official in the Telecommunication
Ministry, here's how the location system could work once it has
been perfected:
Radio induction zones are set up by the hundreds within urban
areas, with each one having a signal-pickup range that can vary
from a few yards to a distance about half the length of a football
field.
The person who is to be tracked is given an Inductive Radio Information
System transmitter, a device small enough to be placed in a pocket
or purse. Each transmitter sends out a unique code, identifying
both the individual and his or her precise location.
A central office equipped with tracking computers is able to
monitor the wearer's movements at all times, as long as the individual
remains within the inductive zones. Adding more zones is fairly
cheap, so it should not cost much to monitor every location within
a large building or even every area in a crime district, for
example.
One obvious use for such a tracking system is electronic monitoring
of the movements of someone who is on probation or parole, or
someone who, for example, has been ordered to stay away from
another individual. (One example: an abusive husband who has
been ordered to stay away from his wife.)
As such, the Japanese tracking system is much more advanced than
the one that has been developed in this country and was implemented
in Onondaga County. That system also requires the individual
to wear a transmitter, but can only signal that the person has
left his or her home.
If the Japanese device can be miniaturized to the size of a coin,
it's even conceivable that a surgeon could implant the transmitter
into the body of a person considered potentially dangerous. This
would allow police to keep track of that individual without the
wearer's cooperation.
Because of the way locations within inductive fields can be monitored,
authorities could program the central computers to notify them
quickly if the wearer left the signal range of one of the fields.
The computer record would show the exact location of the person
at the point the signal was lost, and police could be sent immediately
to that area.
In some ways, this sort of personal tracking system raises serious
ethical issues. Tracking devices could be misused by the government
to monitor non-criminal behavior, and personal privacy could
be violated just as readily under this system as under George
Orwell's fictional "Big Brother" state in his novel,
"1984."
As the technology improves, even greater issues may need to be
raised. A system that uses earth satellites to track the precise
location of anyone carrying a transmitter is already in use.
If the satellite system can be refined to the point of allowing
extremely small transmitters - the size of a credit card, for
example, or perhaps even built into a credit card - a global
personal location system will surely follow.
technofile:
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