Documents WIRED obtained detail new prison-monitoring technology that keeps tabs on inmates' location, heartbeats, and more.
The biometric wristbands are not unlike sports watches, but they have been developed specifically for use in jails and prisons. Hawkins says the wristbands, which don’t have screens or GPS, can track people’s heart rate—oxygen tracking is coming to a future version—and communicate with the sensors in the walls. Hawkins says “several different radio frequencies” have been combined with the company’s algorithm to create the system.
Each band has a battery life of 30 days and a locking mechanism that inmates cannot undo, the CEO says. If a band is cut, it will alert prison staff within 15 seconds, he says. The documents say the system can track where inmates are, recording how long they spend in cells or in specific areas of the jail, such as visitation rooms.
One option within the system is a 3D reconstruction of the jail facility, dubbed a “facility replay.” This shows where inmates, represented by generic human characters, are standing at a given time. Screenshots in a Powerpoint slide show inmates standing near each other. “I think it’s a terrifying leap forward in terms of using technology to manage the jail population,” says James Kilgore, a media fellow at nonprofit MediaJustice, who has written about electronic monitoring and spent six years incarcerated. “It’s just legitimizing gathering all kinds of biometric data on people that really had nothing to do with people being in jail,” says Kilgore, who reviewed the documents at WIRED’s request.
“The heart rate data is used as a predictor of a potential serious health issue,” says Gorlin from Fulton County Sheriff’s Office. “If the individual falls outside of the prescribed levels, then the facility personnel are alerted. Further, the heart rate is not used in any algorithm that would impact personal privacy.
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