CHIP-EMBEDDED SHOES TRACING MISSING PEOPLE

[Anchor Lead]

It takes a great deal of time to confirm the personal identity of elderly people with dementia or intellectually handicapped people if they are lost. Newly developed shoes are expected to help save the efforts, as they show missing people's personal identities on mobile phones. The shoes will be a great help for missing people to find and return to their families.

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This pair of shoes looks ordinary. But they are specially made to identify the personal identity of the wearer. Equipped with NFC chips, the shoes are capable of revealingone's personal information with a simple scan on a mobile phone. The price is similar to that of regular shoes and they are durable, functioning well even if they get wet or dirty. The shoes were developed based on dementia patients' tendency to wear the same pair of shoes even if they are inclined to change their clothes.

[Soundbite] Kim Han-kook(Busan Police Agency) : "Shoes are the item that are worn most frequently. They put on shoes when they go out. So we thought it would be good if personal information is contained in the shoes."

The Busan city government signed an agreement to support the production of the chip-embedded shoes, with a plan to provide them to some 300 senile dementia patients annually.

[Soundbite] Park Doo-young(Busan Metropolitan City) : "We plan to provide the shoes to 300 people each year, including low-income earners or those who once went missing."

Last year, Busan officials received about 1,700 reports about the disappearance of senile dementia patients and those with intellectual handicap. The Busan city government and police expect the shoes will be more effective in finding missing people with senile dementia than the fingerprint registration program, which had a participation rate of just 20 percent.