Saturday, October 16, 2004
Tracking Rental Cars
New York State has just passed a law which makes it illegal for rental car companies to use GPS to track how fast and how far you drive your rental car. While many rental car companies offer GPS services (most often to give you driving directions), only one smaller company has been taken to court for abuse of it. This company billed its clients a hefty fee any time the driver exceeded the posted speed limit. There's more on this story in my book.
The bottom line is that as of last week, you won't have to pay any additional fine if you speed in a rental car in New York State...unless,that is, the State itself is asking for it.
The bottom line is that as of last week, you won't have to pay any additional fine if you speed in a rental car in New York State...unless,that is, the State itself is asking for it.
# posted by AmandaWelsh @ 1:56 PM 
Thursday, October 14, 2004
What Do Prisoners, Patients and Pupils Have in Common
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UPDATE: Applied Digital Solutions just received FDA approval for its RFID Verichip. We can probably expect our doctors and hospitals to start talking more to us about the pros and cons of having an implant ourselves. This is no longer an issue for special groups...
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While debate rages over the use of RFID tags in consumer goods, a growing number of programs to use RFID to track specific populations of people - like prison inmates, hospital patients and Japanese schoolkids - are getting underway.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction just announed a pilot project to use RFID bracelets to track the prison warders and inmates at its Ross Correctional Facility. If all goes well, the department plans to expand the program to include staff and the full population of 44,000 inmates. Facilities in California, Michigan and Illinois also have programs deployed.
Applied Digital Solutions, a Florida company, is nearing a step further for getting FDA approval to sell it's RFID chip to hospitals to identify patients and monitor staff activity. The icky part about VeriChip's technology is that it is designed to be implanted under the skin...Mexico is already using the chip to monitor a handful of cops.
And an elementary school in Japan is tagging kid's nameplates and bookbags with RFID transmitters to monitor whether or not they are truant and if they're sneaking into areas that are deemed off limits.
These three groups join the august list of tracked beings that already includes livestock and pets. Hmmm...
NOTE: after this post, I came across an article in Fortune with still more examples.
NOTE: and here is another article on news.com with still more examples.
UPDATE: Applied Digital Solutions just received FDA approval for its RFID Verichip. We can probably expect our doctors and hospitals to start talking more to us about the pros and cons of having an implant ourselves. This is no longer an issue for special groups...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
While debate rages over the use of RFID tags in consumer goods, a growing number of programs to use RFID to track specific populations of people - like prison inmates, hospital patients and Japanese schoolkids - are getting underway.
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction just announed a pilot project to use RFID bracelets to track the prison warders and inmates at its Ross Correctional Facility. If all goes well, the department plans to expand the program to include staff and the full population of 44,000 inmates. Facilities in California, Michigan and Illinois also have programs deployed.
Applied Digital Solutions, a Florida company, is nearing a step further for getting FDA approval to sell it's RFID chip to hospitals to identify patients and monitor staff activity. The icky part about VeriChip's technology is that it is designed to be implanted under the skin...Mexico is already using the chip to monitor a handful of cops.
And an elementary school in Japan is tagging kid's nameplates and bookbags with RFID transmitters to monitor whether or not they are truant and if they're sneaking into areas that are deemed off limits.
These three groups join the august list of tracked beings that already includes livestock and pets. Hmmm...
NOTE: after this post, I came across an article in Fortune with still more examples.
NOTE: and here is another article on news.com with still more examples.
# posted by AmandaWelsh @ 11:47 AM
