I'm pretty glad I waited to start reading this chapter until after my wife and I had our daughter. This is because of the indentification of infants and now I can post a picture of her. I was pretty amazed about the efficiency of the hospital operation in making sure that our daughter was actually our daughter. As soon as she was born, and possibly slightly before, they tagged Kassie (my wife) and I with matching hospital bracelets with a certain ID code that both Kassie, I, and our baby Mary Olivia had. Then whenever they took the baby to the nursery or other for shots and brought her back to us, they let asked to see our wrist and then match it to our bracelet. Another cool thing, beside matching the baby that they did at TMH, was that attached to her umbilical cord was an small computer chip with a device that communicated to the hospital location system (kind of like the dots commericial, the can tell where you are with one of these things on within the building or if you have left). Lastly, we accidentally ran into a problem with this device as they forgot to take it off as we were leaving Friday night, and the thought we were stealing our own child but this was quickly, and easily corrected.
The second thing I liked about this chapter was the Bertillion system of identifying criminals and how I've still seen it in use today. First, if you go onto the Florida Department of Corrections website and do a search on inmates you can see a description on inmate profiles of what identifying marks the criminals have on their bodies. This ranges from tattoos to scars. Also, from when I worked at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement I noticed a great deal of these types of features being implemented into new forms of Law Enforcement support software. Some of these features include having actual photos of the individuals, and their identifying marks on their profile on the FCIC/NCIC databases (Florida Criminal Information Center and National Criminal Information Center).
Lastly, right before I left FDLE I began working on a part of FALCON, which I think a group presented as part of their IT in the news. But it was pretty need with the amount of efficiency we will be able to identify individuals. Cops will be able to carry easy to hold fingerprint readers equiped with a palm type computer that communicates back to FDLE headquarters where a match is made quickly, the term Rapid ID is used for this technology. But I think this is pretty neat, do I see privacy issues yes, but I definitely see more pluses than minuses with a system like this. What do yall think?
5 comments:
First of all, congratulations! Second, I didn't know that much monitoring and technology went into delivering a child. That was really interesting to see how many checks and balances there are. I'm sure that helps a little to ease some concerns.
The use of fingerprinting and the tools to make it quicker and easier are helpful for law enformenet agencies. I knew the FDLE was doing certain new things but I had not heard about the fingerprinting technology. This is a benefical tool to them and should help save wasted time and costs.
Thanks for the congrats man
Congratulations Andrew! The fun is only just beginning…
I found it very interesting that there are so many checks on the identity of babies and their families now. Things have certainly changed in the last 20 years. I’m sure the safeguards are extremely beneficial and reassuring. Just curious, did they remove the chip from your daughter that identified her location before you left? Once again, congratulations I wish you all the best.
In many ways I’m glad that law enforcement has the ability to identify people through the use of portable devices such as Falcon; however, I am concerned about the possibility of misuse and privacy issues. In many ways, we seem to give up some of our rights to privacy in order to enable a more secure environment. Unfortunately, I am often concerned about how much is too much, and I wonder if we are sacrificing more of our privacy than is absolutely necessary.
Congratulations on the new baby!
Cute baby girl! Must take after her mother! ;-) I think that it is hilarious that they tried to stop you from "kidnapping" your own child. I must admit though, I'm kind of weary about the whole computer chip thing. A little too much control if you ask me.
Post a Comment