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In a bid to limit the spread of infection during pandemics, a subsidiary of Softbank Corp., a major Japanese Internet and cellular provider, has proposed a scheme to limit pandemics through the use of cell phones equipped with GPS.
In an experiment funded by the Japanese government, Softbank plans on giving GPS-equipped phones to around 1000 elementary school students, including a few that will be chosen to be considered infected. The students’ every minute location will be recorded throughout the day and the collected information will be stored on a central server.
The idea is to be able to use the information to determine which children have come into contact with the infected students, putting them at risk of contracting the disease. This will in turn allow the families of exposed students to be informed through text messages instructing them to visit a doctor, in hopes of limiting new infections in case of a real outbreak.
According to Softbank, by alerting the newly infected of their possible infection, this would potentially decrease the number of people they themselves would come into contact with, which would in turn greatly decrease the numbers of people who would get sick.
Although the experiment was conceived before the swine flu outbreak, it is currently drawing new interest owing to the fact that after North America, Japan has the highest number of confirmed swine flu cases.
If a disease-tracking system were launched for real, would you be willing to sign up for it or would you having privacy concerns as your every move would be tracked?
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