Sounds like something out of a Sci-Fi Movie, but this is the latest tech to help track our movements.
Bulgaria is the latest country to trial them. Around 50 residents in Sofia are going to be given the wristbands that will record their movements via GPS Satellite location.
Other Countries are testing similar technology to make sure that quarantine rules are being adhered to. South Korea and Hong Kong to name just a couple.
The tech company involved with the Bulgaria Trials are ‘Comarch Life Wristbands’ which is based in Poland.
The bands will not only confirm that a person is staying at home, it will also measure heart rate and can be used to call the Emergency services.
This Track and Trace Tech is also developed for the use of people who do not have or use a smartphone.
South Korea can order citizens to wear wristbands if they have been found to have violated the quarantine rules. The bands will alert authorities if the user tries to leave home or tries to take the band off. Whereas with the track and Trace on a smart phone, people were leaving them at home to avoid detection.
Below is a list of other countries trialling wearable gadgets:
- Belgium, where residents are testing a social distancing wristband that vibrates if it comes within 3m (9.8ft) of another band
- Lichtenstein, where one in 10 residents will be given a band to track "temperature, breathing and heart rate, and transmit it to a lab in Switzerland for further investigation". Later this year, a further 38,000 residents will be given a band
- India, which has announced plans to manufacture thousands of location and temperature-monitoring bands for people in quarantine
- Hong Kong, where police can be alerted if people wearing an electronic band leave the house while under quarantine.
These gadgets are, of course, are a big intrusion into our personal privacy and data, and a lot of the fears are that this is just governments ‘power grabbing’, but are they a necessary evil against the fight against this global pandemic?
Campaign groups such as ‘Privacy International’ have stated that all these track and tracing measures should be "temporary, necessary, and proportionate".
"When the pandemic is over, such extraordinary measures must be put to an end and held to account,"
Watch this space!