In a repeat this past weekend of a Nancy Grace show which aired earlier in the week there was this exchange between Nancy Grace and one of her callers. Many have probably asked the same question with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, Trenton Duckett and others. It should be worthy of more detailed discussion.
CALLER: I just want to know, in this age of technology, why can`t a child be implanted with a GPS tracking device, like they do with dogs, but more GPS, where the minute that kid goes missing, the FBI can track this child?
GRACE: Hey, you know what? That is not a farfetched idea. In fact, Paulette in New York, in large amusement parks, such as Disneyland, Disneyworld, they very frequently give little GPS trackers to families that come in, and they stick them on their kid, in their backpack and their pocket, and they are tracked. It`s not farfetched. And you know what? I don`t know why.
Some basis issues to consider:
- Radio-frequency identification (RFID) vs. Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
- GPS coverage issues (signal availability)
- Civil rights of the individual being implanted
- FDA approval is an implant safe? (long term side affects)
- Legal liabilities if technology fails
- Costs to implant and to monitor (initial cost and mothly fees and or fees to find the child)
- Cost vs risk of child being abducted?
Related Post: Lojack your kids?
When it comes to gps technology I am totally for a child to have a watch or something that they can carry on them. It’s when the government goes to far with the idea that they make everyone have one. Pretty soon your government is telling you who to be where to go and all the Vendeta that comes with that kind of power. As long as the idea is controlled with certain scenarios its a good thought.
I am a father of a 8 month old daughter. I had her a little later in my life. This has helped me avoid the pitfalls of many younger dads. Waiting a few years longer has given me a wealth of ‘life experience’, as well as patience. Most important, though, is wisdom. I would love to get a GPS implant for my daughter for her own saftey. Those that worry about the government need only look at the alarming rate of child abductions every year to realize that such a threat is far more serious and imediate that the government tracking my childs eating, sleeping and playing habits. Atleast I’ll be comforted to know that my daughter is here. God forbid that she ever goes missing, I’d be wishing the government was tracking her!
Stop it with the government nonsense.. this is for the well-being of a child. the key is not to monitor the child, but to have the ability to locate. this is done by FBI and local LEO and is not used by some overbearing parent. watches and phones are disposable thus no use. If I can look this up ,you can bet that a child abductor has done the same
Cost. this is the difficult part. who pays? the implant cost will come from the parent, but, it has to be affordable,50-100 dollars I would pay. the monitoring / tracking will be picked up by the government and local state. the man hours that go into the trying to locate a missing child are great, not to mention the volunteers.
when to remove, or not this is simple. when the child turns 18 it is their choice and they can pay for the removal. welcome to adulthood
I dont want the home computer screen to have my kids daily route on it. I just want the police to drive straight to them if they were to go missing.
I live in a society were personal security is an everyday issue. Densell Washingtons’s “Man on Fire” is not far from reality. I would LOVE to have GPS implants for all of my family. Forget the govrnment spying on you. They pretty much know all they want to know about law abiding people anyway. Only criminals live is obscurity.
COST: Considering the security benefits VS money. Who wants to put a price on finding an abducted kid? It could be pretty expensive and be worth every dime.
what if people push congress to have this implant as a voluntary (free will) device. and what a good citizen care if the government knows where (s)he is.
Aaron, they already do tell us who to be. As do the car companies we are currently bailing out.
I agree that the benefits would far out weigh the risks.
Isn’t this technology already in existance? Why wouldn’t the devices they implant in animals work in children? Does anybody know?
I response to my previous question, I’ve done some research, and answered my own question. While doing this research, I became increasingly upset with some of the responses in reguard to this. No matter the topic, there are always naysayers who try shooting down ideas without thinking through what they’re saying, and not knowing what they’re talking about. This could potentially save countless children from unthinkable crimes and suffering. We need to find a way to make this happen for that reason alone. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be certain laws and regulations with using them, but don’t let more children suffer because of this “what if” BS.
Couldn’t a law be made that only allows a parent to use such a device on their child and that it be removed after a certain age? I think the whole idea or concern about government controll over people is so rediculous. If the government really cared about where you are or what you’re doing they will find out. We’re talking about the safety of our children here. For those of you who are worried about the government having more access to you than they already do, so they’d rather hinder the development of a device so sick pedifiles and child murderers can’t steal an innocent child and rape or kill them, SHAME ON YOU! The only people who should be against this technology are the predators who we will be stopping with this. I think it’s crucial that this be given a try. I know we can’t always predict the consequences of technology and sometimes there are negative ones, sometimes there are not. The FDA approve drugs and then disapprove them all the time. While we’re wasting our time worrying about “what if” more children are being violated! What are we waiting for?
Dawn,
There are some other posts on this site if you search using the terms RFID or GPS. What is implanted in pets is an RFID chip not a GPS. The main difference is a RFID chip only contains info but has to be scanned for the info to be retrieved. The GPS technology is not commercially available for use in human beings.
I would love to be able to have some sort of implant for the FBI to be able to locate my son in the event of an abduction. I think that it should definitely be available to children at a higher risk of abduction. For instance, my son’s father is very unstable (would have been nice to know this in advance!) and I worry about him finding us and him taking him away. He seriously considered a plot to kill me and never denied it under oath. He’s legally only allowed supervised visitation through the health department. I would love the feeling of not constantly looking over my shoulder and be able to have more of a sense of normalcy. I know I’d still have a responsibility to keep him safe, but the anxiety of him disappearing without a trace wouldn’t be nearly as great.
Have you seen the movie Changling? True story dated back in 1928. Overview.. child goes missing while mom is at work, never found. Yet, thought to have been abducted by a serial killer..targeting only children. A very disturbing movie!!! Why? Because a child was abducted, a mother lived the remainder of her life in constant search and worry.
In this day and age of technology.. there is no credible reason against gps’ing our children. Inserting a small microchip in a child’s shoulder blade region.. at birth. Child will come home all microchipped up. Let’s review some stories that we never would have heard about had such a device been implanted… 1. infant in the midwest that was abducted from the home- during the afternoon.. crazy woman lost pregnancy, saw the stork on the front lawn, faked a broken down car…stabbed and almost killed new mom, ran away with baby. Sister-in-law to crazy woman noticed a birthmark on baby which resembled the one she saw on the news… baby was returned to family safe.. about 2 weeks later.
2. Caylee Anthony in Florida would not have rotted in a trash bag 1/4 mile from her home for 6 months…
3. Haleigh Cummings in Florida.. would not be missing for over a month.. but safe with her family.
-The list goes on and On and On….
I’ve read people saying that it makes them sick to their stomachs because “lojack” for cars shuts down the car engine remotely through cell phones and internet. Therefore, they fear the health risks of placing such a device in children. How pathetic. To those people I ask this.. We want to protect our children, not shut them down remotely!!! Do you really think we’d implant our children with something that wasn’t tested and proved to be safe? We use the word “lojack” because it’s become a household name. Would it make you guys feel better if we refered to our kid-safe, health risk-free GPS chip as “kidjack”?
Another argument against “kidjack” is Big Brother. To those that are afraid of being tracked, I ask you this… do you own a cell phone? Do you keep it on? If you said yes, you are able to be tracked. Cell phones ping nearby poles for signal, and leave a record. Do you own an EZPass tag? Yes, your being tracked.. you are being video’d each time you go thru a toll. And a photo of your tag is being taken as well. Do you use an ATM card? Your being video’d and a picture is taken. But my real question is this.. are you that much of an egomaniac to think that the government really gives a hoot about you?! Don’t you think they have bigger fish to fry than you? I mean.. Osama Bin Laden is still alive. Oh wait.. are you him? LOL.
So, the point is this, I can careless about my car.. take it. I love my dog, but in the grand scheme of things, my kids mean the world to me, so you can have him. I would be just like that mother in Changling.. forever worrying and searching for my child until the day I die. If the technology exists for a safe transdermal microchip… I want to know real reasons against it! Not bogus stupidity… why can’t we have piece of mind?
The body of the first child who dies with some sort of GPS gadget will be found with a gaping hole in the place the GPS was inserted. This will mean the first thing the abductor did was dig out the gadget so the child couldn’t be found during the torture/captive/death scenario.
Bad idea.
First of all, it will not be stamped across the forehead of the child that they have a locator chip implanted in them. Second, by the time the primary care giver realizes the child is gone and notifies the authorities, more than likely the abductor will not have had time to examine the child that thoroughly with an x-ray machine to discover the chip to remove it. I don’t see that the risk to the child’s life out weigh’s the benefits!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People always bring up this ridiculous point about finding a body and therefor the GPS implant is not doing it’s job. Just the opposite is true. For one, the abductor wouldn’t even know the child has the implant. Second, if the sicko attempted to remove it an automatic alert would go out just like a 911 call. Third, for the thousands of people that NEVER know the whereabouts of their missing child, they will at least have an answer even if the child is found after losing his/her life.
It’s not a “big brother” thing. It’s not a parent mistrusting their child. It’s safety!!
My 3 yr old child went missing in the local market today. It was only for about 5 – 10 minutes and someone immediately took her to the police. We just got lucky. I had put my cell phone number on her arm (but no name as advised) and we had a meeting point. This is somewhere she knows and goes to weekly. Despite all the stall holders knowing her, no-one saw where she went. In her panic she just went the wrong way, away from our meeting point and forgot to say that she had my number on her arm.
As you can imagine these were long minutes, when I was imaging the worst. If she had a GPS chip, then the likelihood of the worst actually happening would be so much less.
I’m really tired of people using the “Government” debate. As Emily mentioned, there are so many other ways the government can keep tabs on a person. I have been blessed with a beautiful baby daughter Scarlett. I’m almost 30 and was told by doctors that I would probably never have children, so, she is my EVERYTHING.
Nothing, not even myself, comes before her. If this technology was made available to me I would take it in a heartbeat. I mean, before I let any of my family even babysit I make sure they know CPR.
God forbid anything should happen to her but, if it did, I want to know that I did everything in my power to at least try to prevent it…
Keep up the good work with this blog. I have put a link on my Blog so other parents may find it…
Put it in a cell phone. Put it in watch, piece of jewelry, a shoe, you name it and it would be safe. If it’s implanted in the body for location it would absolutely be “located” on the childs body and possibly removed. You need an X-Ray machine to locate a piece of metal sure. You don’t need it to locate a tiny electronic device that sends signals. All you need is another small electronic device. This can fit in a pocket. Something a would be kidnapper might procure prior to their crime.
This invasive device could also create an illusion of security that might have parents taking more risks than they should. Just because something can send a signal for location doesn’t mean it will work in a deep basement or Faraday cage lined van. It also can’t protect them. We need to stop looking for technology to save our children and just be attentive parents. Technology can help but implants should never be given without proper consent from the recipient who needs to understand the implications.
Even if a small device was implanted into my child, I would still practice caution and teach her how to be safe in unfortunate circumstances as well.
since she goes between her dad’s house and mine, I know that I am more carefully attentive to her than he is, and he sometimes takes her to places that a 4 year old should not go.
I will have this done as soon as I am able. I will pay, and she can remove it when she is 18 (or maybe not)…
She doesn’t even need to know it’s there. She tells all, so she would surely share that info with anyone who will listen. I agree, watches and other exterior tagging devices aren’t useful. they can be cut off and most likely won’t be worn to BED or in the bath or swimming pool!
Tetro raises an important point – any device that gives off a signal can be located with a hand-held scanner, which are cheap, easy to buy, and easy to conceal.
Any predator who lives in an environment in which his/her prey are implanted will simply use a scanner to locate the chip and then they will CUT THE IMPLANT OUT OF YOUR CHILD!!!
For those who think this is unlikely, consider the time, risk and planning predators put into abduction.. do you think a predator would NOT buy a scanner, locate the chip, and remove it?
So, not only will your child still be abducted, they will be injured too… unless the authorities can rescue your child within minutes of abduction, which is very unlikely.
I also agree that having your child chipped is likely to make parents complacent – people will trust these chips more than the technology really warrants, and neglect to watch and educate their children effectively.