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.
I agree with you on almost everything you are saying however i dont believe i could ever support a bill to be passed that completly and blatantly violates peoples privacy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that in certain instances, a tracking chip for children under the age of 5 could be a good idea. I also agree that it could pose as a privacy issue especially if this chip is being unnecessarily used. Overall, I agree that if this were to be a bill then it would have to have very specific intentions and regulations depending on everyones unique purpose for needing a tracking device.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you thought of all the different scenarios for which this might be acceptable. I hadn't even given thought to implanting a chip in disabled children who have difficulty caring for themselves. However, I'm not sure I agree with you that this would ensure a child's safety. If a parent can track their child using this chip, couldn't a hacker as well? Couldn't this enable abductions, rather than prevent them? These were the thoughts I had that ultimately made me decide I would not support a bill like this.
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