Identity Wristbands – Invasive, but critical?

Highly invasive wristbands are being proposed by multiple countries in Asia including Hong Kong, Japan, and India. These wristbands would enable tracking every movement of an individual including who and where he meets, the purpose of the meet, and other minute details. With these bands, as easily evident, a big part of the privacy would be compromised due to their highly intrusive nature.

But are the bands required?

Coronavirus scare has forced nations to think of such extreme measures. Evidently, in various countries, post-Corona virus detection, it became increasingly difficult to trace back the movement of people and quarantining them. Moreover, multiple violations of the prescribed regulations were commonly witnessed. Had everyone been on a singular monitored grid, it could’ve been much simpler for governments to create systems and policies to efficiently isolate and manage the spread of the carriers of the virus.

Individual movement could be tracked and monitored

Needless to say, these wrist bands, if implemented, a big part of individual privacy norms would be violated and with the wrong intent, such micro-tracking tools could do irreparable damage. Freedom of life would be curbed with a tradeoff of a better opportunity to survive. Exploitation of individual rights, data on customer preferences, and community mindset could sway choices and manipulate our decisions from business to elections.

What could the future look like?

If all the world was indeed fair and we assume that the band would be put to the best practices, it could be a device of the future leading to revolutionizing many of our activities. Some product implementations of such wearable technology practices have been speculated below:

Unique Identification of an individual and could be the wearable digital counterpart of Aadhar cards.
With a digital signature like a thumbprint, this wristband could help an individual to identify anyone anywhere across the globe replacing all other ID cards like Driving License, Aadhar Cards, and Passports.
In case of any future crisis from diseases to natural calamities, locating individuals would be easier for any relief measures and identification.
Utility as a quick payment device. Money transfers being facilitated by such a device could act as a single device, obsoleting Credit Cards, Debit Cards, and all payment devices.

Cards could be rendered obsolete with wristbands as an all inclusive solution

Whether these wrist bands will disrupt the future or not, is yet to be seen. I’d rather prefer a wearable device, than a chip being embedded in the people and putting Patent 666 into effect. But this is certainly a big privacy pushback wherein there is always Big Brother watching your back. Post-Covid- making tracking optional and restricted, and using the other ideas speculated above for advanced wearable tech without invading individual freedom, could be the next giant stride for wearable technology.