[Turukawa]

There's an idea by the writer, almost lost in the article, that I thought is brilliant:

"When he was in hospital without any documents or ID I came up with the idea of medical bracelets for homeless people. I bought about 100 waterproof USB wristbands which can hold important information and I've given away about 60 so far."

There are any number of people made homeless through mental illness. They are often lost in the system when they become critically ill, and such an identifier would help medical professionals to reunite these people with their families.

[danieltillett]

Couldn't the same thing be done by a wristband with just a shortened weblink. The advantage is you could update the website and the link could be engraved on the wristband.

[arethuza]

I'd have thought a wristband would be too easy to damage/remove - especially if they become indicators of people in that kind of situation. Similarly I think things like tattoos or embedded chips are spectacularly bad ideas - for all manner of reasons.

Maybe retina scans or something like that?

[danieltillett]

You could make the wristband hard to accidentally remove, but if it is made out of a decent metal and engraved then it would not be hard to ensure that it survived.

Something like this needs to be voluntary - we really don’t want to be forcing vulnerable people to start wearing something they don’t want to.

[austinjp]

My thoughts exactly. Also, less to go wrong with engraved metal vs USB bracelet.

[reacweb]

tatoo a url ;-)

[danieltillett]

Well not to Godwin the thread I think that might be taking things a bit too far.

[viewer5]

You're Godwinning it pretty hard. Do you have a more lucid and less Godwinny argument than "well, Hitler!" ?

[DanBC]

The government tattooing people who have an illness that increases paranoia seems sub-optimal.

You'd definitely have people cutting the tattoos off.

[junto]

Surely a tatooed QR code would be the modern day equivalent!

[kweks]

I work with homeless people, people in precarious situations, people without ID, immigrants without papers, etc.

I've discussed this very concept multiple times, from multiple angles, with a few organisations.

This issue becomes a real issue of when the person becomes gravely ill, or dies. Most of the time, it's impossible to trace the person's history - contacting next of kin, working out their path until their demise.

This is a real problem to solve.

However, the practical aspects are that this device needs to be non-identifying, and needs also to be non-exploitable by third parties (in particular: police).

Many people without papers are already in a situation that's difficult enough as it is, but this would be made even more difficult by giving police / other authorities a tool to trace, track, and punish.

Likewise, many people in these situations do not WANT to be found, or do not WANT to carry papers.

The conclusion that I had come to would be that these devices are completely encrypted, and provide no form of external data (ID, etc); and a 'read only' industry facing interface would be exposed.

Services, such as hospitals, or indeed police, etc - could lodge requests to a system with this data. The system would register this information, but give nothing back.

The organisation trusted with this information (could be a recognised charity that works with homeless etc) - would be able to, if requested, or required, or at the person's death, be able to access this information.

The end result being, a person holding one of these cards would be able to have a medical history, and be able to build up a map of their lives.

Such things already exist: social security card, etc.

It's a tough problem to crack, once you start to consider the human element.

[Mz]

These are very real and very serious concerns for some homeless individuals. For others, not so much. I think it would be great if the system you describe were available. But I also see nothing wrong with trying to find something simple and easy that works in the here and now for some portion of the homeless population.

[draven]

I was about to comment about the same thing, it's really brilliant since the medical professionals could also access their medical history in case they land up at a hospital, so that could potentially save lives for a few dollars.

[greggman]

I applaud your effort.

Sticking a usb anything of unknown origin into a most computers is not a good idea tho