Every single Metropolitan police officer will be ‘microchipped’ so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.

The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.

The basic premise is good. With this system if they lose contact with an officer in an emergency they can locate him.

The problem is quite simply: Human Nature.

What pencil pushing, desk-jockey, wouldn’t like to know where everyone was and what they were doing every minute of every day?
With the added bonus of justifying the jobs of people who were promoted beyond their level of competence, and generating more worthless reports that the brass can pretend mean something.

A further question: Does anyone believe that big brother will quit watching just because the officer is off the clock?