Worker and Offender Tracking Devices to Reach an Installed Base of 10 Million by 2026

Unlike tracking devices that are largely aimed at the consumer market (e.g., child tracking, elderly person tracking, or pet tracking), there are also many use cases for people tracking in industrial, enterprise, and institutional markets. Within the enterprise setting, the two key people tracking market segments are worker monitoring and offender monitoring. With a huge opportunity for growth in these markets, it’s forecasted that collectively there will be an installed base of 10 million worker and offender monitoring devices by 2026, according to a new report from global tech market advisory firm, ABI Research.

Worker monitoring solutions in the enterprise segment cover indoor and outdoor use cases, targeted at understanding the location and other safeguarding features of the person being tracked. There are a variety of different industries that can utilize worker and lone worker monitoring, such as construction, healthcare, and social work. Just as there are a variety of industries and needs, there is a vast choice of solutions available for the employer to consider,” says Harriet Sumnall, Research Analyst at ABI Research. “There are both device (e.g., Abeeway and LONEALERT) and application-based solutions (e.g., Vismo) available for this market, enabling employers to consider all tracking options and choose a solution that is best suited for their employees.”

The offender monitoring market is seeing an evolution in hardware design. Instead of the standard ankle bracelets, wristwatches are now another option for tracking and monitoring offenders. Offender monitoring can be used for a variety of different use cases including tracking within the prison, early release, offenders released on bail, and crime scene correlation. The location capabilities enable law enforcement officers to see the whereabouts of those using the solution as well as communicate with offenders for check-ins.

While the pandemic is slowly but surely easing, countries globally have seen an increased number of prisoners released early to prevent overcrowding of the prisons themselves.  India and Iran collectively have released more than 160,000 prisoners. Overcrowded prisons cost governments large sums of money.  In the United States, it can cost up to US$80,000 per year to house one inmate. “Though the cost of offender monitoring is not as significant at the cost to house an offender, minimizing the prison populations will ultimately reduce this cost, which is why governments are pushing for social justice reform, that includes offender monitoring solutions as an alternative to incarceration,” Sumnall concludes.

These findings are from ABI Research’s People Tracking for Enterprise: Worker and Offender Monitoring Solutions application analysis report. This report is part of the company’s IoT Hardware & Devices research service, which includes research, data, and Analyst Insights. Based on extensive primary interviews, Application Analysis reports present in-depth analysis on key market trends and factors for a specific technology.