Talking about the county chipping our recycle bins got me thinking.
People chip their pets so if they get lost the vet or animal shelter can scan them and return them to their owners.
Would you chip your kids if it meant you could track them down?
Your child gets kidnapped, the police can find them. Your teenager cuts school or lies about where they are going, you know exactly where they are. Your kid runs away from home, no problem finding them.
We already have the technology to do this with cell phones. Parents can have text messages sent to their phone giving their child’s location. We already have lo-jack to track down stolen cars.
How far would you be willing to go to protect your child? How far would you be willing to go to monitor your child?
What if the government had access to this information? The police know your kid was involved in a crime because their chip was at the scene. How much of your child’s privacy would you be willing to give up if it meant keeping your child safe and out of trouble?
I wonder if one day it will be the norm to chip a baby as soon as (s)he is born and parents who refuse to do it will be looked at as negligent and uncaring.
Hell, I want to get MYSELF chipped, sort of. I want a little chip that IDs me, and a database that a hospital/ER/doctor’s office can check to see what meds I’m taking, what I’m allergic to, and my general medical conditions.
When my daughter was younger, and in grade school, I had a little tag that was marketed for pets, with a place to write in a name and phone number. I kept this clipped to her shoelace. Yeah, it WAS a long time ago. Her friends thought that this was really, really cool, and it started a small fad.
Chips in pets don’t give location. In fact I think they just give a number, which has to be checked against a database. They can’t store medical records, blood types etc.
Also, we don’t have technology to make implantable chips that give off location. These need to send data, maybe by mobile networks or satellite, and need GPS to track their location, which all need a lot of power. So no, chips won’t help you find a kidnapped kid.
No way. The chances of my child getting kidnapped are so remote as to be almost impossible, The damage done to the child’s sense of trust and independence would be extremely harmful.
I don’t think I would chip them, I’d prefer something like an anklet that can be removed easily with a code or key and I’d remove it when they hit 10-12ish and they get that real need for privacy.
I could see kids starting out chipped, and then an actual you’re-growing-up-now event where they are ceremonially unchipped (or possibly the ID is changed) so that the parents can’t look at location data without the kids’ permission. This would take place relatively early, sometime after they get keys to the house but before they learn to drive. All part of the steps on the road to independence.
Of course this would be hugely dependent on the particular situation, the maturity levels of the kids, maturity levels of the parents, etc, etc… based on some of the stories I’ve read here, there are people I’d never trust with ny location data.
This works quite well for me. I don’t see kids as people the same way that adults are - they sort of have to grow into their freedoms and independence.
