Cell Phones and Privacy

I believe that prepaid cell phones are a good alternative to contract services in the sense that you can terminate the agreement whenever you choose without having cancellation fees.  However, I do believe the government should still have a way to track the information and records that are taking place.  Perhaps an alternative to this (and I'm not sure if it is currently like this) would be to go through a cell phone company in which you must give the number and information of the prepaid cell phone but may be allowed to pay with cash and in advance for services while being able to terminate them just as easily.

 

I think that criminals who are using this as a way around being tracked would be the main focus and purpose of this policy.  Perhaps a survey for current and past users of prepaid cell phones discussing the advantages for it would be helpful in that they would still maintain the ease of prepaid cell phones (whatever that may be) but still be able to track those who are abusing it's purpose.  I do not think they should be banned, just more controlled.  By allowing the option to still exist would make most users happy, yet make the technology a little bit more safe so that illegal activity was going unnoticed. 

Location Tracking

After giving it a lot of thought, the only benefits I can think about when implanting a chip into a child is the case where the child has some sort of a disability, disorder, or disease in which they would have trouble caring for themselves.  Also in the case that a child under sixteen does not have the privilege of driving and may, in some cases, walk home from school which would put them at a higher risk for being abducted.  These are the only times I would think it would be beneficial, however privacy concerns still remain a challenge.  I do not think any teenager would want their parents being able to track their exact location, however some do this now without the child's knowledge via phone applications and many parents would claim that until the child turns eighteen, they are under the supervision and care of their adults and it is their job to protect them.

 If there was a bill in Congress to require ID chips in children under the age of five I think I might support that even though I think it is still a privacy concern.  The purpose at this young age is to ensure safety of a child, not a nagging parent trying to control a teenagers life.  With society today and all of abductions and murders of young children, this seems like a good compromise - however we have created things such as Amber Alerts that may not be as effective, but still cover a wide range of monitoring without privacy implications.

I cannot say for certain whether this would ever pass congress or not, but I definitely think it would be something that has to be regulated and made very clear as to what ages would be allowed to be tracked and for what purposes.  I'm not sure whether the benefits outweigh the risks because like I said, it would depend on the proposal.

First Post

 

I have never made a blog before, other than Xanga when I was like twelve years old so it's going to take a bit for me to get used to this. I'm not sure what this first post is supposed to entail, other than to relate it to the class so I guess I will just say that the book I chose to read for the project, iDisorder, is extremely interesting and I can't wait to finish it up.