Geoslavery

Geoslavery is a radically new form of human bondage characterized by location control via electronic tracking devices. Formally, it is defined 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). Inherent in this concept is the potential for a master to routinely control time, location, speed, and direction for each and every movement of the slave or, indeed, of many slaves simultaneously. Enhanced surveillance and control may be attained through complementary monitoring of functional indicators such as body temperature, heart rate, and perspiration.

Once viewed as a futuristic nightmare, human tracking is now affordable and available without restriction. For $200 plus a monthly service fee of $20, anyone can[Page 187] purchase an electronic device that puts George Orwell's 1984 surveillance technology to shame. They are marketed as kid-tracking devices, although some advertisements also mention pets and senior citizens. In vivid tones of doublespeak, one company offers service plans named “Liberty, Independence, and Freedom,” but surveillance and control are their purpose.

Human tracking is part of a broad category of location-based services (LBS) that depend on geographic information systems (GIS) enhanced by coordinates derived from the Global Positioning System (GPS), radio transmission of real-time locations of tagged objects or individuals, and Internet-based monitoring systems.

Consumers welcome GPS receivers for personal navigation, especially for travel and outdoor recreation. There is much good and certainly no harm so long as the coordinates go directly to the user and no one else. Current GPS devices display maps produced by GIS containing detailed information about businesses, residences, and individuals. Human-tracking devices add radio communication that reports location data to a service center with its own powerful geographic information system. Subscribers pay for the privilege of peeking in at will to check on the individual being tracked.

Most LBS applications, including automobile navigation, cargo tracking, and emergency response, are overwhelmingly beneficial. Others, such as precision-guided weapons, are more controversial. Even many human-tracking applications per se will be neither coercive nor surreptitious and thus will not constitute geoslavery. Some will be quite beneficial.

Still, human-tracking devices pose the greatest threat to personal freedom ever faced in human history. At the very least, they will alter social relationships between some parents and children, husbands and wives, and employers and employees more dramatically than any other product emerging from the information revolution. Whatever legitimate uses there may be—to safeguard a child or an incapacitated adult, for example—abuses will occur. Even full-blown geoslavery is inevitable: The only question is how many people will suffer from it—hundreds, thousands, or millions.

After decades of fretting over Orwell's vision, hardly a whimper has been heard since the devices went on sale. Media attention has focused entirely on the advertised case—parents of good intention watching over their own children—and no one seems to have asked the following questions. Will the practice really protect children? Or will it introduce new risks? How will children react, emotionally and behaviorally, to constant surveillance and control? Will tracking be confined to children and incapacitated adults? Even so, which applications will require informed consent, legal proceedings, or medical hearings? Should human-tracking companies be licensed? Should their employees undergo background checks? What other safeguards are needed? Will human tracking become a ubiquitous tool of control throughout society? If so, which applications are acceptable and which are not? Which existing laws must be amended to place electronic means on a par with traditional means of branding, stalking, incarceration, and enslavement?

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