Surveillance or saviour? Guelph police find elderly man with locating technology

A 94-year-old man who went missing in Guelph, Ont., last week was found after a bracelet he wears that puts out a radio frequency led police to his location in just over 30 minutes.

The bracelet is part of the international effort called Project Lifesaver, which provides the bracelets to families of people with cognitive conditions who may tend to wander. The bracelets emit an FM radio signal 24 hours a day and can only be detected by police equipment. 

Project Lifesaver was adopted by Guelph Police Service and Victim Services Wellington in 2011.

"People with dementia, kids with autism or maybe somebody that has a brain injury and they have a tendency to wander and get lost," said Liz Kent, the executive director of Victim Services Wellington. 

"This program actually is beneficial to everyone," Kent said. She said it was implemented in Guelph as victim services and police realized the "population was aging and that this problem was going to get worse."

Last Thursday, police in Guelph sent out a release that detailed the case of the missing man, who has a cognitive impairment and went missing from the area of Victoria Road N. and Cassino Avenue on Wednesday morning. 

As soon as his daughter called him in as missing, police said that officers were able to use a special scanner that detected the man's Project Lifesaver bracelet.

Police spokesperson Scott Tracey confirmed the man was found within 34 minutes of officers getting the missing call and setting up the equipment. 

Kent says they've needed to do about 40 searches using the technology and that all of those searches had a 100 per cent success rate. 

Project Lifesaver requires the upkeep of victim services workers, who visit clients in the program every 60 days to change the battery of their bracelet. Kent said the average start-up cost is around $400, but there are ways to offset that completely if needed through donations. 

She said eligibility for the program largely depends on the support system. Somebody must be available to notice and report a missing loved one, and somebody must be able to check the battery on the bracelet every day.

Project Lifesaver says on its website it has 100 per cent find rate and an average missing time of around 26 minutes. Project Lifesaver International did not respond to CBC News to confirm these numbers. 

Privacy concerns

There are limitations to the bracelet and at least one expert has raise concerns about the ethical considerations of using police equipment to track down loved ones. 

Krystle Shore is a researcher in the department of sociology and legal studies at the University of Waterloo and has studied Project Lifesaver.

She said she believes the program may not be as successful as it seems, although it is entirely legal. 

"I think it's a very common belief that surveillance is going to equate with protection, and I certainly understand that it's a very natural belief," Shore said. "But the problem is that if you look at the research, it's not actually a valid assumption."

She said that while she could argue about the damage to somebody's personal privacy in a program like Project Lifesaver, it's a grey area when it comes to somebody with a cognitive difference whose caretaker may have power of attorney.

"But it becomes a bigger question of: Are we using surveillance in a way that's good for everybody in our community?" Shore said. 

She said that expanding police surveillance into this, which is largely a health-care issue, could stop people from seeing the root of the issue. Shore says a better way to address wandering loved ones may involve research about the environment they live in. 

"There's really interesting communities cropping up where they're using environmental design to help with wandering danger specifically," she said.

This includes the use of colours and pathways to encourage residents who wander to find their way back. 

"Wandering can actually be a very meaningful and helpful activity to somebody with Alzheimer's, for example. But I certainly understand there are dangers that go along with that," she said. "But there's ways that we can make wandering safer rather than try and fight against it." 

Kent says she understands the concerns about privacy and notes the bracelets can only be picked up by the police scanner.

"I respect privacy. I'm a big believer and everybody should have the right to privacy," Kent told CBC News. "However, if my mother was missing and I was worried about it being –18 C in January, that would trump privacy."