Free Republic

When the Town of Babylon installed global positioning system technology in most of its fleet of 250 vehicles in January, officials touted it as a way to improve efficiency, particularly during emergencies such as snowstorms. However, the system also is being used to monitor worker behavior -- a realization that has left town .employees increasingly nervous. One of a growing number of municipalities and corporations around the country using GPS to track workers, Babylon has become the local flash point in the debate over how to balance the desire to improve efficiency with the need to protect worker privacy. Already,...

Setting the stage for controversial tracking technology, the satellite telecommunications company ORBCOMM has signed an agreement with VeriChip Corp., maker of the world's first implantable radio frequency identification microchip. VeriChip, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, will work with ORBCOMM to develop and market new military, security and healthcare applications in the U.S. and around the world, the company said. As WorldNetDaily reported, Applied Digital has created and successfully field-tested a prototype of an implant for humans with GPS, or global positioning satellite, technology. Once inserted into a human, it can be tracked by GPS technology and the information relayed wirelessly...

<p>Gary Stillman, the director of a small K-8 charter school in Buffalo, New York, is an RFID believer.</p> <p>While privacy advocates fret that the embedded microchips will be used to track people surreptitiously, Stillman said he believes that RFID tags will make his inner city school safer and more efficient.</p>