The Wall Street Journal has seen leaked documents which detail how iPhones will eventually be adapted to monitor the mental health of users. Future handsets will be capable of monitoring users’ mobility and sleep patterns.
The device will also be capable of analysing your mental state through your typing patterns. According to The Times:
The features are still in the planning stage but are likely to be part of the company’s collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which is studying stress, anxiety and depression, and the pharmaceutical company Biogen Inc, which is studying mild cognitive impairment.
UCLA researchers are using movement, sleep and facial expression data obtained through the Apple Watch and iPhone, and plan to compare what they find with participants’ answers to mental health questionnaires.
Biogen and Apple said in January that they were experimenting with how to use handsets to track cognitive function over time and identify mild cognitive impairment, a condition that can develop into Alzheimer’s.
Apple claims that it will eventually create an App to warn users that they are at risk and advise them to seek the advice of a specialist.
And they said that we were paranoid when we claimed that smart phones are watching us and monitoring our conversations, didn’t they?
This has the whiff of Minority Report about it doesn’t it? Apple will no doubt maintain that the App will be secure and totally confidential. What a load of crap. This has pre-crime and the social credit system written all over it.
Philip K. Dick couldn’t have dreamt it. In the future, your phone will tell you that you are mentally unstable and advise you to seek a specialist, while simultaneously notifying the local authorities.
Failure to book a health visit will result in the authorities coming to see you in the interest of public safety. They’ll have no problem finding you, even if you throw the device in the toilet. Why? Well that’s obvious. There will be a chip inside you, whether you know it or not.
The phone will also be adapted to inform the authorities if it thinks that you may be about to commit a crime.
In fact, in the future, you won’t even need to be carrying a phone as everyone else will and they’ll all be interconnected. That’s what the internet of things is. You might turn yours off or leave it at home, but every conversation you have will be heard, because you’ll never be more than a few feet away from a smart phone or watch.
“Agent Harris, Agent Harris!” “Get to Langworthy Road, Salford. Citizen #1133456 (Richie Allen) is spreading misinformation about the vaccines. Apprehend immediately!”
It’s coming….
