One doesn’t need a crystal ball to see that humans will soon be at a point where they have little, if no privacy at all. Some might say we have precious little privacy now, especially if we own products — i.e. cell phones — with GPS.
But my crystal ball sees a time when every human will have a GPS chip (or something similar) implanted in their bodies at birth, and every move they make over the course of their lives will be recorded somewhere — there for instant or future reference by law-enforcement authorities and others, if needed.
There are myriad ways that information could be used. It would certainly help law officials solve crimes. For example, someone robs an ATM late at night. No problem for the police: they simply scan a database to learn which GPS chip was there that night.
Other examples: A child is abducted, and located within moments thanks to her/his GPS implant. An elderly person with Alzheimer’s wanders off, but is found quickly . . .
You get the idea: no more unsolved crimes and disappearances. Indeed, it would probably cut down on the numbers of premeditated crimes.
Some would argue that the benefits of such an internal human tracking system would outweigh potential loss of privacy. Others, of course, would argue that privacy is paramount, and that such implanted tracking systems could give governments and business far too much control over us.
But I think it is going to happen, anyway . . . That’s one of my predictions for the state of the world 1,000 years from now. There will be nowhere to hide . . . if one is so inclined.
— Jillian
P.S. Yes, I have talked about this idea in earlier posts. But I raise it again because we have been making predictions about the future (and because there are always new readers coming here who don’t go back and read all the old posts).
My crystal ball. As I said: Hollywood got there 15 years ago. Minority Report. Now all we have to see is War of the Worlds %@
LikeLike
The location chip is already available, and a variant of it has been used for many years with pets. Yes, there are potential benefits, but if I made a legitimate withdrawal from that ATM two minutes before it was robbed, having been there before the robbery should not make me a suspect, but it would. I think that the risks far outweigh the potential benefits. Anyone considering getting location-chipped needs to weigh their own risks vs benefits.
Fortunately we can still turn off phone-location tracking on at least some phones, mine included. I have disabled location-tracking on my phone, because it is none of anyone’s business where I am or where I go. I can re-enable location-tracking in a few seconds in an emergency.
The US is rapidly evolving into a police-state, and I have no interest in making myself easier to track and keep tabs on, because I still value whatever liberty and freedoms that I still have. The time may come when staying pretty much “under the radar” is not possible, but for now, I try to keep a low profile.
LikeLike
As in any technological advance you have to weigh the benefits versus the risks. When Social Security was first introduced in the US the conservatives were certain that the social Security Number would be used to track and identify people. That’s why on the card was the statement: “Not for Identification” until 1972 when it disappeared.
We have been making footprints of newborns for centuries, but that was for the hospital’s protection more than anything else.
We have been chipping livestock for decades and more recently our pets. So why not our kids? I think many if not all parents of lost or kidnapped kids would wish there were a chip tracking system in place.
By the way, GPS chips embedded in, well anything, is pure science fiction. For one thing, GPS satellites only send information. They aren’t designed to receive any data but commands from the USAF controllers. So, even if we could embed a GPS chip into someone, where would it send its’ data? I fly a $3000 drone and have the smallest, lightest GPS tracker I could find attached to it in case it ever flew away out of control. It is about half the size of a pack of cigarettes – not something anyone would ever want embedded anywhere. It transmits positional data to my cellphone.
The technology of a hundred or even a thousand years will bring something similar to Hollywood GPS chips into reality, maybe. I have a difficult time seeing where the cost of the technology would ever justify the benefits.
LikeLike