From Truthout:
From the shanty town favelas of Rio de Janeiro, to working-class community housing estates in New Zealand, to the battle-weary streets of Chicago’s South Side, electronic monitors — digital tracking devices that monitor the location and behaviors of people facing increased surveillance by police — have become normalized.
Like police cars and bodegas, they are part of the social landscape. While the traditional ankle monitor remains the dominant technology for electronic monitoring (EM), cellphone apps, wristlets and whatever other devices Big Tech comes up with are moving into the marketplace of human tracking. In the era of artificial intelligence, machine learning and global networks, electronic monitoring companies and their political supporters continue to make unfounded promises that electronic monitors will reduce crime and bring peace to violence-torn communities. Despite the lack of evidence that their devices have a positive impact, their usage and capacity continue to expand.
Tracking apps now not only capture a wearer’s location but also grab biometric data like heart rates, respiration rates, voice patterns and facial features. Some conduct two-way audio and video communication. While Colorado-based BI Incorporated, which began as a cattle tracking company in the 1970s, stands as the world’s largest supplier of electronic monitors, it is not alone. Israel-based Supercom and Attenti, the United Kingdom’s Buddi and Capita, China’s Refine Technologies and Brazil’s Spacecom are carving out global monitoring territory. Berg Insight Report, the only global study of EM, estimated about 517,00 people per year were on an electronic monitor of some sort in Europe and the Americas in 2021. Continue reading >>>
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