Chicago is demanding that children on bail wear private-sector ankle-cuffs with mics that can record them without their consent

Children who end up caught in Chicago's policing and justice system are being outfitted with ReliAlert XC3 GPS ankle-cuffs supplied by the Track Group, who use them to log children's movements and to bark orders at them, as well as listening in on them. The children have to wear them 24/7 while on bail awaiting trial.

The company claims that the recording function in the tracking anklets generates a notification every time it is used, but its own technicians have testified under oath that the listening function can be covertly activated. Track Group stores all recordings of its interactions with children indefinitely.

The system illustrates the shitty technology adoption curve neatly: when we have a terrible idea for technology, we first inflict it on people who don't get to complain, until the edges have been sanded down enough to roll it out for everyone else. Kids are often shitty technology beta-testers, as are prisoners: kid prisoners are a match made in hell when it comes to shitty technology rollouts.

The argument for ankle-cuffs (spy-mic'ed or not) is that it increases bail compliance, but there is no evidence to support that argument. 90% of people on bail return to court on the strength of a simple telephone reminder.

Track Group is paid $3.68/day per child that they monitor. The company says that "out of an abundance of caution" they are disabling the recording feature pending a review.

Chicago's policing and justice system are among the most corrupt in America. Violent, corrupt/a, racist cops act with impunity, their crimes covered up at the highest levels, and in the very rare circumstances that they are penalized for misdeeds, those penalties are usually secretly waived. Read the rest