California school mandates RFID tags for students
posted Feb 12th 2005 2:25AM
A small-town school in California has become the latest to mandate that students wear RFID-based ID cards when on campus. According to Brittan Elementary School officials in Sutter, a rural farming community, the tags have been implemented to simplify attendance-taking and reduce vandalism. In addition to tracking students in classrooms, the school's principal wants them tracked in bathrooms and locker rooms. Parents and the ACLU have raised privacy and civil-liberties concerns. Some have also questioned the financial relationship between the school and the cards' manufacturer, which is paying the school to try out the cards and offering it commissions on future sales to other schools. However, the principal, Earnie Graham, has another explanation for student objections. "You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. This is not stylish," he said. Okay, guess they'll have to switch to implants, then.
http://eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/RFID/libraries/
Help stop RFID's from taking over the libraries.
It's the mark of the beast!
This is an attempt to get people used to the idea of such cards and implants. For all the supposed benefits one has to give up their freedom... and what about the potential for abuse by those in control? Avoid it like the plague.
Total indoctrination. This is one time I'll side with the ACLU, because it's about liberty. Are attendance and vandalism really that big of a problem? Do they really think they can make everything perfect with technology? Yeah, vandalism sucks, especially when you're a victim, but not as much as being owned by the "authorities". As for skipping class- the world needs bathroom attendants and drug dealers, too. RFIDs aren't going to change that.
Low jacking cars, computers and such is awesome use of technology for theft recovery. Low jacking people takes away freedom, will be abused and is a disgusting use of technology.
I want the original of that image..
it's fascinating...--really
Please. The whole thing is based on the incorrect assumtion that students are stupid. The school is teaching the students to give up their privacy. Meanwhile, the students that want to vandalize aren't being affected.
Exploit? "Lose" your RFID equipped badge. Kids lose stuff all the time. Razor out or otherwise disable the chip in your old badge. Wear your new badge around school, keeping your old badge in a pocket. When it's time to do evil, leave your new badge in the restroom, wear your old, RFID-stripped badge while you go law breaking!
#7 has it. This is an area my team pays close attention to. All of these schemes forget that the tag only tracks the tag, not the student. But schools are under such tremendous pressures now to provide both security and accountability that this will only increase.
There are upsides to RFID in schools, though. Having taught jr. high for 7 years I can see where this would be a massive help to teachers who often are forced to bore their students at the start of each period by taking attendance. School improvement is accomplished one tiny piece at a time and increasing usable class time by 2-3" each of 8 periods for 180 days lets schoools say they're adding the 6+ days to the school year through increased productivity.
BTW: If you want to see the brave new world of privacy in schools, check out Biloxi, MS. They installed webcams in all spaces (except restrooms) two years ago. Parents can log in and watch. It's a post-Columbine thing that a lot of schools are doing.
"There are upsides to RFID in schools, though. Having taught jr. high for 7 years I can see where this would be a massive help to teachers who often are forced to bore their students at the start of each period by taking attendance. School improvement is accomplished one tiny piece at a time and increasing usable class time by 2-3" each of 8 periods for 180 days lets schoools say they're adding the 6+ days to the school year through increased productivity."
I think this is a bit of an exageration. If a teacher knows all the student's names (and they should, this is junior high we are talking about), they can do the attendance in less than a minute. Give the kids some work and it wouldn't even waste the time that they could be working.
As for the vandalism, security cameras would be more useful. I wonder if RFID tags have ever been used against someone in a case like vandalism. I don't think RFID tags will solve anything in this case.
#8 (Barry B.), c'mon. How long does it take to actually take attendance? Very little time. It's the hardest at the beginning of a new year or semester. Progressively gets easier as time goes on and you're more familiar.
Also, by not taking verbal attendance you really end up not knowing who you are in class with. An aspect of school that this concept overlooks is the social aspect. And roll calling is one small part of that aspect. People are names; not numbers. Now they are barely numbers; they are radio frequency sources.
This should be banned. And if I had a kid in that system, I'd pull them out of that school and make as big a stink as possible.
Good idea.
Yeah, you heard me.
Sure, it's a little big brotherish. But let's be honest: Our society has already decided that kids need to be babysat by school. And if you're going to foist off babysitting for six hours a day -- and make the school in every way responsible for the actions of your child -- the least you can do is allow them the tools to do it right.
Beg pardon, I meant to type "actions and safety of your child."
I will be selling tinfoil hats out of the back of my van in the school's parking lot... do visitors badges and teachers and employees all have RFID nametags?
How can a RFID tag be used for attendance?
If I wanted to skip school, I just need to give my card to my friend, and I will be recorded as present. It's very easy to fool this technology.
Or how about a stealing somebody's else's card and using if for vandalism. Then that other person gets into trouble.
And students are going to come up with ideas much more creative than my own.
As a senior in high school I can tell you that in some classes it can take 2-3 minutes to take roll because you have to look through the list, then if someone is not there you have to resort to asking the students where so-and-so is and then you have to check lists to see whether a person has an excused absense (athletics, plays, college visit, etc) and if he or she isn't on that list then the person is marked absent.
Used in a very controlled manner, this could possibly be helpful. I doubt it will help with vandalism but it will surely help with attendance. All the students in public schools in my city are required to wear name tags around their neck to prevent strangers from entering the school. That's unneccessary in my opinion but if they want to require you to wear a nametag might as well include the tags.
Just my opinion though.
LOL, tie the RFID tag to a small animal like a rat or mouse. The prinicipal will wonder why that student is always in the cafeteria all day long. LOL
To #10. You've got the idea exactly. Schools are considering these to do just what you say: raise the level of interaction between students and teachers. This frees teachers up to teach not be stuck in what is called "administrivia". Students would not appear as numbers, or names, but people. Yes, there are big downsides, I'm not yet convinced that this is a good idea, but it early adopters like this one can tell us a lot. The thing that really bothers me about this particular arrangement is the school's getting a commission. That could really skew the info we're getting. BTW: A charter school in Buffalo started using RFID a year ago. They've included it on their buses because parents wanted to know when their kids were getting picked up/dropped off. Parents can log into the school's website to see if the kid got on the bus or not and what time they got off.
If i have the same class as a frind of mine who wants to skip. Guess What, for 5 buck I am carring his tag for him to class. Now the school thinks he is in class and I am 5 bucks richer.
If i have the same class as a frind of mine who wants to skip. Guess What, for 5 buck I am carring his tag for him to class. Now the school thinks he is in class and I am 5 bucks richer.
Barry B (#16), since you--based on your website--seem to be an advocate for technology of anykind in the classroom, I think you're far from unbiased and do seem to have some personal investment in this.
How about this. Prior to RFIDs, let's see if we can bar-code children and give each teacher a scanner.
If that can be done, then I'll accept your argument. But there is simply no way that something like this benefits anyone but the bureaucracy of the school. In fact the desire to implement this in the school mentioned in this story seems to be mainly laziness and not much else.
There are lines that should not be crossed. This is one of them.
Has anyone considered the tort potential when someone finds a link to cancer?
They plan to require an RF device on their person, and we are talking about children. There's no "proof" yet that exposure to RF (radiation) causes cancer. However, the evidence is growing that extreme exposure (very close proximety) does. These are K-12, and younger people have a much higher chance of living long enough to develop more obscure cancers due to carcinogen exposure.
Someone should start collecting names and contact information now on these first students. I smell a Dow Corning coming soon!
Why can't a group of friends send one person to class with a pile of badges in her pocket while the rest of them skip?
I still don't get the point of this. Ok I can understand speeding up attendance. Fine. But is this going to deter anyone from skipping class? Nope. I know tons of kids in school that would cut even though they would get caught everytime. Some kids just don't give a fuck and I don't see how this tech will help.
I'm a kid. This is an obvious one to me. I shall list the following "proposed" positives, followed by what i think of them, then any negatives.
less roll call time: People have already alluded to the idea that the true entreaupreneur will give his RFID tag to a friend and roam as he sees fit
Stop vandalism and skipping classes: Addressed in the above point. And vandals could always be people who a) aren't from the school and "visit" outside school hours or b) kids who are from the school and vandalise outside school hours
Now, the negatives.
the arbitary privacy issues.... Addressed by many fine people above.
Pedophiles: How long till someone can trace the RFID tags and decides "hey there are kids walking home alone at points X, Y and Z"
Cost: How can you justify this when there doesn't seem to be a single benefit
Social skills: So the teacher doesn't need to know a kid at all, is expected just to teach crap to people for a year and thats it... So what happens if a kid is depressed or has mental health issues? We decide that they should be little more than a number in some absurd database
Cancer: as jason kindly stated, carcinogens are bad. we use far too much radio anyway.
Q.E.D.
(And as gardner stated, the RFID thing *should* have Christians up in arms, i mean who seriously thought that the mark of the beast would be a physical tattoo saying "666" an RFID tag is all too convenient. Just a thought though, this one depends on your religious persuasion so i left it out.)
RFID tags will only track themselves, not the students. Criminals elements trying to sneak into the school will not have tags to note their presence. This is simply invasion of privacy with no real benefit to the parents or students. The benefit is only to the manufacturer and the school - note that InCom has paid thousands to the school and promises future royalties. The principal of the school (and anyone who agreed to this program) should be fired for violating ethical standards.
Why in God's name is society getting weaker every day?! Is it not enough that people like Kathy Cox here in GA wanted to eliminate the word "evolution" from schools, or that some minority atheists can't deal with the word "God" in the nation's pledge of allegience? This is like something out of a bad movie. It's like the society in Demolition Man. DOES IT NOT SCARE ANYONE THAT PARENTS ARE SO UPTIGHT THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO DEPRIVE THEIR CHILDREN OF THEIR NATURAL RIGHTS? One of the most important tendencies of a growing child is the desire for independence. Does it not seem unnatural and perhaps harmful to force these children to believe that authorities are infallible and that they must have their thinking done for them? Order is by all means desirable, but only willfully; this forced control is a mockery of reason and liberty. Freedom implies the capacity for an immigrant child to arrive in America with nothing and become a doctor. But it also implies that if someone willfully chooses to sit on their thumb all day and skip school, they should be allowed to do so and end up as a 50 year old McDonalds manager. Someone should dig up Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to catch them weeping in their graves, because this was not their dream.
#20, RFID tags have no power source, and do not emit a constant signal. They only transmit when they are near the RFID scanner. VERY weak signal sent for a VERY short period of time.
I could be wrong about this implementation of the technology, but I believe it's about the same as the devices that let me start my car with a chipped key, and let me into my office through a secure door with my RFID badge.
I'd be more concerned about the wireless access points being set up everywhere. More power, always on, and extremely high frequencies.
I don't see how this could possibly be effective without the chips being implanted, and that ain't gonna happen any time soon.
This idiocy is precisely why, if/when I ever have kids, they will be home-schooled. This isn't about faster attendance taking or less vandalism - it's about control, plain and simple. "A little big brotherish" - are you mad? This is Big Brother in every sense. Think about what this really teaches your kids - we don't trust you, we have to constantly monitor you, you'd better follow the rules and be perfect OR ELSE. It also teaches those kids that their value is so small that we will sell their privacy up the river for a nice kickback from some start-up rfid company. This is complete and total crap.
It's also part of a larger scheme of introducing the meme that everyone ought to be tracked and/or digitally indentified in some manner. Though it is certainly evil, I believe it is almost inevitably on the way - and the recent passage of bill HR418, which specifies mandatory electronic ID cards for everyone who "wants" a driver's license, is another step in this direction:
http://news.com.com/House+approves+electronic+ID+cards/2100-1028_3-5571898.html
And the excuse behind this bill - surprise, surprise - combatting terrorism!
barb dybwad: "This is Big Brother in every sense."
Get a grip, barb. 1984's "Big Brother" monitored every facet of an adult's life, both professional and personal, and enacted retribution for "badthink". The proposed action tracks a child (not an adult) while at school (not anywhere else) and suggests only holding the child accountable for his actions (not for his thoughts or beliefs or ideas). This is not even close to "Big Brother in every sense"; your hyperbole is absurd.
That's not to say that I agree with the proposal, just that I think the predictable hyperventilation it causes is laughable.
If you want to contact the principal or the board, all contact info is here:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:W5gw2P-K1UIJ:www.sutter.k12.ca.us/Directory/CoverLetter.pdf+earnie+graham+sutter&hl=en&lr=lang_en
Here's Earnie Graham, the principal
Phone: 530-822-5155
Fax: 530-822-5143
EarnieG@brittan.k12.ca.us
Where do you get that pic man? That thing sure looks like what Tweeky carried around (on Buck Rogers, the 70s version).
Is that for real?
G.