Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:38PM EDT
See Comments (13)
If you've missed the news, kidnapping is big business in Mexico these days, with the incidence rate about 40 percent higher since 2004, now hitting about 6,500 abductions a year. Earlier this year the State Department issued a warning for U.S. travelers heading south of the border, saying that dozens of citizens had been kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana alone last year.
Locals are scared, too, so the wealthiest among them (after all, it isn't the line cooks that are getting kidnapped) are turning to technology for protection. A company caled Xega is now selling a small chip about the size of a grain of rice, which reportedly transmits location information to a satellite, a la GPS. If Xega subscribers fear they are being kidnapped, they can hit a panic button to alert the company, which then calls police and feeds the location info to them.
I'm curious how they get this kind of functionality into such a small package, but I can't find any additional details on how the technology actually works; products like the similarly-sized VeriChip, used here mainly to track pets, rely on RFID and can't be located remotely.
At $4,000 for the unit and $2,200 a year in additional fees, it isn't cheap, but still in striking range for a middle class that is increasingly being targeted by kidnappers. Intriguingly, Xega used to make garden-variety GPS technology until one of its owners was himself kidnapped. His experience led the company to refocus on security hardware.
Is a microchip appropriate or extreme as protection against violent crime? How scared would you have to be to get your own implant?
Join in the discussion. Here you'll see the comments in the order they were posted.
I'd get implanted, I'm scared sometimes that I might get kidnapped, I mean, a lonely 13 year old walking down the street, in a nice neighborhood...You get the idea...
rogueist: and what about if you just happen to not be carrying the item around when you were kidnapped, or were kidnapped "away" from that item? Not a very smart plan, my friend. Not a very smart plan!
Well dubya, i think I share rogueist's concerns. I have a problem with implanting something in myself that could be used to track me. Yes, it'd be a good thing to have in the case of an abduction, but what if someone figured out how to track the device themselves? Say, the U.S. government? I don't like the idea of anyone being able to track my movements without my knowing it.
Sign me up for implantation!! And then please tell me what to eat, drink, and do!! I do not want personal freedom anymore!! I want a central government that really protects its citizens!!
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1 Posted by rogueist on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:49PM EDT Report Abuse
I'd never get it implanted. I would put it on or in something I normally carry around. The technology itself is fairly simple. It's been around for over 20 years. I had to make a similar system a few years ago.