Akershus University Hospital in Norway has announced that it is to begin equipping newborns with anti-kidnapping alarms.
The system will be implemented when the maternity unit moves location in October.
Both the babies and their mothers will be fitted with bracelets containing personal identity chips. Should these two devices move out of range of each other, out of the hospital, an alarm will be set off, the hospital doors will lock and elevators will shut down. An alarm will also sound should anyone attempt to remove the baby’s bracelet.
“The main reason is that we want to emphasise security,” Erik Normann, head of the Akershus University Hospital near Oslo told Agence France-Presse. “There was a period in which Norway experienced several infant kidnappings and that is something we want to avoid.”
The Akershus hospital itself has had no incidence infant kidnapping. Delivering around 4,200 babies each year, the maternity unit is one of Norway’s largest.
The hospital in in Lørenskog, northeast of Oslo, is the first in Norway to adopt the security system.
