IconoclasT wrote:
] WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human
] Services
] said Thursday that it was about to begin testing a new
] technology
] designed to help more closely monitor and assist the nation's
] homeless
] population.
]
] Under the pilot program, which grew out of a series of policy
] academies
] held in the last two years, homeless people in participating
] cities will
] be implanted with mandatory Radio Frequency Identification
] (RFID) tags
] that social workers and police can use track their movements.
]
] The RFID technology was developed by HHS' Health Resources and
] Services
] Administration (HRSA) in partnership with five states,
] including
] California and New York. "This is a rare opportunity to use
] advanced
] technology to meet society's dual objectives of better serving
] our
] homeless population while making our cities safer," HRSA
] Administrator
] Betty James Duke said.
]
] The miniscule RFID tags are no larger than a matchstick and
] will be
] implanted subdermally, meaning under the skin. Data from RFID
] tracking
] stations mounted on telephone poles will be transmitted to
] police and
] social service workers, who will use custom Windows NT
] software to track
] movements of the homeless in real time.
]
] In what has become a chronic social problem, people living in
] shelters
] and on the streets do not seek adequate medical care and
] frequently
] contribute to the rising crime rate in major cities.
] Supporters of
] subdermal RFID tracking say the technology will discourage
] implanted
] homeless men and women from committing crimes, while making it
] easier
] for government workers to provide social services such as
] delivering
] food and medicine.
]
] Duke called the RFID tagging pilot program "a high-tech,
] minimally-intrusive way for the government to lift our
] citizens away
] from the twin perils of poverty and crime." Participating
] cities include
] New York City, San Francisco, Washington, and Bethlehem, Penn.
]
]
] Participating states will receive grants of $14 million to $58
] million
] from the federal Projects for Assistance in Transition from
] Homelessness
] (PATH) program, which was created under the McKinney Act to
] fund support
] services for the homeless. A second phase of the project,
] scheduled to
] be completed in early 2005, will wirelessly transmit live
] information on
] the locations of homeless people to handheld computers running
] the
] Windows CE operating system.
]
] A spokesman for the National Coalition for the Homeless, which
] estimates
] that there are between 2.3 million and 3.5 million people
] experiencing
] homelessness nationwide, said the pilot program could be
] easily abused.
] "We have expressed our tentative support for the idea to HRSA,
] but only
] if it includes privacy safeguards," the spokesman said. "So
] far it's
] unclear whether those safeguards will actually be in place by
] roll-out."
]
] Chris Hoofnagle, deputy director of the Electronic Privacy
] Information
] Center, said the mandatory RFID program would be vulnerable to
] a legal
] challenge. "It is a glaring violation of the Tenth Amendment,
] which says
] that powers not awarded to the government are reserved to the
] people,
] and homeless people have just as many Tenth Amendment rights
] as everyone
] else," said Hoofnagle, who is speaking about homeless privacy
] at this
] month's Computers Freedom and Privacy conference in Berkeley,
] Calif.
]
] While HRSA's program appears to be the first to forcibly
] implant humans
] with RFID tags, the technology is becoming more widely adopted
] as
] retailers use it to track goods. Wal-Mart Stores said last
] year that it
] will require its top 100 suppliers to place RFID tags on
] shipping crates
] and pallets by January 2005.

Now I don't know about you, but if I were a homeless person, I think I'd want some help getting back on my feet, vs getting something foregin implanted in my body :( I know this is designed to help them get back on their feet, and yes it is a ever growing problem that we face as a whole. But there just seems to have to be a better way?

RE: HHS announces program to implant RFID tags in homeless