Do students have the same rights as cattle?

[Ed W]

A Texas school district adopted a plan to use RFID chips to monitor their students.  What could possibly go wrong?

A plan by a San Antonio school district to continuously monitor its students using RFID has run into legal problems after one of them took a stand against being forced to use the tracking technology.

Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas has spent over $500,000 on its "Student Locator Project," a lanyard worn around the neck that has both a bar code and RFID tag built in. Students need the lanyard to use the library or cafeteria, vote in school elections, and in some cases for toilet breaks, and it allows the school to track their every movement throughout the day.

Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore student at the John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, has been effectively expelled from school for refusing to wear the tags, citing religious, privacy, and freedom of expression reasons.

...The lawsuit will put a spanner in the works for the RFID tagging scheme, since the NISD already has plans to roll out the tracking scheme to over 100,000 students under its remit. The school district is hoping the system will increase school attendance, and thus win it a grant of nearly $2m from the state government.

...The school has already installed over 200 CCTV cameras in an attempt to curb truancy, some of which have a live link directly to the local police department, Whitehead said. All of this, along with the RFID scheme, is paid for out of the education budget.

...The school district was unavailable for comment.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/schoolgirl_expelled_rfid_chip/

How could location information be misused?  Let's say a local child molester figured out how to access the system so he could find his next target.  Or Senator Coburn noted that the same two girls were in the restroom at the same time every day, and that they could possibly be lesbians.  Or that certain kids visited the section of the library that contained sex education materials.  On second thought, it's Texas, after all, and they probably don't have any sex ed material.  Or perhaps the star quarterback and head cheerleader are in the same broom closet after lunch every day.  Worse yet, maybe it's the star quarterback and a tight end.

The school is an extension of the government, and to my way of thinking, the government doesn't have the right to know where any citizen chooses to be at any time. The tags can be easily rendered useless by a few seconds in the microwave, but that doesn't help when you need one to get into the restroom or get your grades.  That strikes me as coercive. 

[Hoss]

A Texas school district adopted a plan to use RFID chips to monitor their students.  What could possibly go wrong?

A plan by a San Antonio school district to continuously monitor its students using RFID has run into legal problems after one of them took a stand against being forced to use the tracking technology.

Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas has spent over $500,000 on its "Student Locator Project," a lanyard worn around the neck that has both a bar code and RFID tag built in. Students need the lanyard to use the library or cafeteria, vote in school elections, and in some cases for toilet breaks, and it allows the school to track their every movement throughout the day.

Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore student at the John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, has been effectively expelled from school for refusing to wear the tags, citing religious, privacy, and freedom of expression reasons.

...The lawsuit will put a spanner in the works for the RFID tagging scheme, since the NISD already has plans to roll out the tracking scheme to over 100,000 students under its remit. The school district is hoping the system will increase school attendance, and thus win it a grant of nearly $2m from the state government.

...The school has already installed over 200 CCTV cameras in an attempt to curb truancy, some of which have a live link directly to the local police department, Whitehead said. All of this, along with the RFID scheme, is paid for out of the education budget.

...The school district was unavailable for comment.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/21/schoolgirl_expelled_rfid_chip/

How could location information be misused?  Let's say a local child molester figured out how to access the system so he could find his next target.  Or Senator Coburn noted that the same two girls were in the restroom at the same time every day, and that they could possibly be lesbians.  Or that certain kids visited the section of the library that contained sex education materials.  On second thought, it's Texas, after all, and they probably don't have any sex ed material.  Or perhaps the star quarterback and head cheerleader are in the same broom closet after lunch every day.  Worse yet, maybe it's the star quarterback and a tight end.

The school is an extension of the government, and to my way of thinking, the government doesn't have the right to know where any citizen chooses to be at any time. The tags can be easily rendered useless by a few seconds in the microwave, but that doesn't help when you need one to get into the restroom or get your grades.  That strikes me as coercive. 

It IS Texas however...not condoning, but explaining.

[guido911]

http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/judge-grants-reprieve-student-expelled-refusing-wear-tracking-device-badge

[DolfanBob]

It is getting to where that our society is so out of whack with sick perverts kidnapping and abusing our children. That maybe a device used to track our children like we already do for pets may someday come to fruition.

Yes I know how crazy that sounds, but a microchip could be installed at a very young age and removed at a more appropriate age of maturity. Something not used for general where about, but just like a Amber alert type of situation.

[Hoss]

It is getting to where that our society is so out of whack with sick perverts kidnapping and abusing our children. That maybe a device used to track our children like we already do for pets may someday come to fruition.

Yes I know how crazy that sounds, but a microchip could be installed at a very young age and removed at a more appropriate age of maturity. Something not used for general where about, but just like a Amber alert type of situation.

Sounds a little too Orwellian for me.  I don't dispute the reasons why...just sayin'.

[DolfanBob]

Is it me or am I wrong that in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I don't think that we as a society had as many rapist and child molesters as we do with this so called advanced society of today?

Could it possibly be that we did and the media just did not inform us as they do now? has social media and all the news channels that we have, just shown a brighter and more often spotlight on this problem?

[patric]

It is getting to where that our society is so out of whack with sick perverts kidnapping and abusing our children. That maybe a device used to track our children like we already do for pets may someday come to fruition.

Like the promises years ago that having your children fingerprinted at a fair booth somehow makes them less desirable to kidnappers?

[Red Arrow]

That maybe a device used to track our children like we already do for pets may someday come to fruition.

The chip we put in our dog doesn't track him.  The chip will identify us as his owners when a scanning device is used.

[Hoss]

The chip we put in our dog doesn't track him.  The chip will identify us as his owners when a scanning device is used.

The topic of this thread however states that they will use the RFID chip to monitor students, not to 'identify their owners'.

[Ed W]

Is it me or am I wrong that in the 50s, 60s and 70s. I don't think that we as a society had as many rapist and child molesters as we do with this so called advanced society of today?

Could it possibly be that we did and the media just did not inform us as they do now? has social media and all the news channels that we have, just shown a brighter and more often spotlight on this problem?

Two things contributed to the increasing number of such stories.  First, there's simple population growth. When I was a child, the population was about 200 million.  Now it's 318 million, if I recall right, so while the percentage of sex criminals probably hasn't changed, the actual number has increased.

The other reason has to do with improved communications and the internet.  In the 1960s, a child abduction story may have been a central focus of local news, but it was rare that it went national.  National radio and TV news stuck to the big stories, leaving the child abduction for the locals.  The local paper, radio, and TV had limited space, so although the staff may have been aware of a crime in a neighboring state, there simply wasn't space to run it. 

Now, however, such a story can reach far more people because there's no shortage of space on the internet.  Also, it's entirely possible to cater your newsfeed to those stories that interest you.  Sensationalism sells, otherwise Nancy Grace would be a checkout cashier in her local supermarket.

[Red Arrow]

The topic of this thread however states that they will use the RFID chip to monitor students, not to 'identify their owners'.

The topic of this thread may be ignoring that the chips involved may not be capable of monitoring students.

That maybe a device used to track our children like we already do for pets may someday come to fruition.

[patric]

The topic of this thread may be ignoring that the chips involved may not be capable of monitoring students.

They would have to press their RFID to a reader to enter or leave a room, so the resolution at which occupancy is being cataloged depends on how many locked doors they have to go through on a daily basis.  Kiosks (like cafeteria checkout) add to the resolution, as do spot-challenges by security personnel with portable, networked readers.

As for the perception that there are sex offenders everywhere, that's a media response to public demand for that information, often inflamed by previous media stories.  Round and round.

[Red Arrow]

They would have to press their RFID to a reader to enter or leave a room, so the resolution at which occupancy is being cataloged depends on how many locked doors they have to go through on a daily basis.  Kiosks (like cafeteria checkout) add to the resolution, as do spot-challenges by security personnel with portable, networked readers.

If we are going to limit the chips to the kind that need to be pressed to a reader (very short range), I don't have so much of a problem depending on how often and where the access readers are.  Getting in and out of the building would be acceptable.  It would be no worse than morning attendance when I was a kid.  Requiring the card for access to individual rooms, restrooms etc is too much.

[Ed W]

If the school installed the loop detectors used at many running events, pressing the RFID tag against a sensor wouldn't be necessary.  The loops can be installed near door frames or any other chokepoint. 

[lalumna]

I like the idea of having kids scan their ID to get into a restroom. Restrooms are one of the hardest places to keep safe in a school. (You can't install cameras in them and faculty never go in because they have their own restrooms.) It's a prime location for bullying, vandalism and drug deals. Because schools have a primary responsibility of keeping kids safe, courts have given a wider latitude to school officials concerning the right to privacy. School officials do not need probable cause to search a student's car, locker or backpack. They only need reasonable suspicion that the student is breaking a school rule. The right to privacy has to be balanced against the school's interest in safety and student discipline. It's obviously too intrusive to install cameras in student restrooms, but having kids scan their ID does not strike me as too intrusive, and it gives a record of who was in the restroom at what times.