Thursday, December 27, 2007

Geoslavery

Geoslavery is a new form of human bondage based on cellphone or GPS tracking. Four years ago in IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Pete Fisher and I [Jerome E. Dobson] defined geoslavery as "a practice in which one entity, the master, coercively or surreptitiously monitors and exerts control over the physical location of another individual, the slave." ...

This year in the Geographical Review, Pete and I warned that human tracking will become commonplace, mainly because of reduction in price. As recently as 10 years ago, the cost of round-the-clock surveillance was about $350,000 per watched person per year -- an exorbitant price tag justified only for high-value targets in matters of national security or corporate espionage. Now the cost is less than $500 per watched person per year. (more)