Ever heard of geofencing?
Not just for dogs anymore!
Geofencing is a location-based technology that creates a virtual boundary around a specific geographic area using global positioning systems (GPS), radio frequency identification (RFID), Wi-Fi, or cellular data. When you enter or exit a “defined area” with your smart phone, pre-programmed actions will be triggered. What do I mean by pre-programmed actions? Think of notifications being sent (AI-based tattle tailing), tracking movements (stalking), or enabling/disabling certain features (you no eat today because you ‘broke our rules’).
Now, they’re going to sell this insanity as a marketing scheme which will be “ideal for broad, general targeted marketing, such as sending promotions to customers within a certain distance from a store”.1 Yeah sure, you’ll get a “better personalized experience” and have your mocha chai latte frappe ready for you at the local coffee shop that they know you go to every morning at 8 am, and “fleet productivity” will improve “by tracking arrival and departure times automatically”,2 but at what bloody cost to privacy? How far is too damned far? To me, all this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing except the wolf ain’t a wolf and the sheep’s clothing ain’t clothing.
Geofencing is based on targeting people: at first perhaps, to help people buy more crap that they’ve been convinced that they like or need though advertising, and finally, to enable total control of movement, action and even thought.
Debbie does Dystopia.
If you ask me, what this is going to turn into is exactly the same thing as is used for dogs, aka: invisible electric fencing. All you’ll need is your radio-detecting dog collar! Don’t think you don’t have one? Well you do! Be it your smart phone, your smart “wearables”, or even more “convenient”, your implantable device! Oh implants: what an exquisite idea, eh? With implants, you won’t have to leave your doom scrolling or shopping obsession for even a second! Not even when you’re in the shower! Oh, just imagine the convenience of it all. But it’s not all shower implant glamor, because if you go too far outside of your designated boundary, you’ll get zapped either physically or figuratively. If that doesn’t bother you, it should.
It’s not hard to see why they’re pushing 15-minute cities, is it. It is precisely geofencing. Where will the line be drawn (will it be drawn) between physical planning (15-minute cities) and digital boundaries (geofencing)?
Geofencing will ensure that you are kept in your little pen and eventually, when everything is linked to a CBDC, and AI becomes more dominant in digital spaces, your location won’t be the only thing tracked within a parsec of your life. You won’t be able to take a crap without some smart toilet telling you that ate too much nutrient-dense food that day.
“You must increase your consumption of ze bugs and ze lab-made frankenmeat lest we will diminish your social credit score to the point where you won’t eat tomorrow!”
The good news is, in my opinion, is that it’s not too late to drop the bloody smart crap and the tracking devices. Say no to the surveillance state, even if it is inevitable. Say no anyway.
It’s always been up to us and we must stop opting into these narrative lies created by unelected non-governmental organizations based on wanting to “protect us” and “make our lives more convenient”. It ain’t about protection and it ain’t about convenience.
We don’t need protection from anything except from dictatorial sycophants who like ideas like geofencing. Sorry dudes, but it’s just a bad idea.
I would just like to say here that 5 years ago, I would never have written an article like this. It is after careful observation of the goings-ons in our world that I am not only wary of these new-fangled technightmares, but advocating against their constant use and the willing hand-over of personal sovereignty to the lie of convenience. The best time of human life in the past century was to be found in the 1980s, in my view, and as everyone knows, there were no cell phones back then and government (or non-government) surveillance was considered to be a bad thing. We didn’t need to be surveilled to be safe and we didn’t need sanctioned conveniences, and in fact, everyone was far healthier and happier.
Opt out. Drop the phone. Run for office, not for the latest smart gadget.
The power is ours.
https://radar.com/blog/geofencing-explained-what-is-geofencing
https://www.geotab.com/blog/what-is-geofencing/
Thanks for writing about this, Jessica.
The dream of the bad guys is to herd us around like cattle, slaughtering some of us when the time is ripe. With geofencing, a form of digital fencing, they really would get to treat us like cattle.
Geofencing would be a "dream-come-true" for the tyrannical power-lusting opportunists of the world.
Put your phones in a small metal box or frequency blocking bag when you go anywhere. Only take it out when you actually need it. That will be the only point that they can track where you are.