Slashdot Mirror
Students Tracked By RFID
TheMeuge writes "The New York Times is
reporting
a new development in the unrelenting progress of the
RFID juggernaut. The school district
of
Spring, Texas has adopted RFID as a way to track students' arrival and
departure. Upon being scanned, the data are transmitted to both the school
administrators, as well as city police. I guess cutting class is no longer an
option."
FR
The difference being, we are required by law to know where our pupils are at all times, i can't see a reason for knowing when you're in your house at all times, although I'm sure a few of the anonymous cowards will think of a reason.
I'm amaized that a teacher would use a possive version of get (get's) instead of the proper version (gets).
Such as finding kidnapped students? Or tracking down students that were committing crimes? Or preventing non-students/staff/approved folks from entering the school?
I was in high school when the Columbine thing happened. After I graduated HS, there was a student that ran off with a teacher. While I was in college, at least a few students "disappeared," only to turn up dead a few weeks later.
I don't know enough about RFID, the technical limits, or how they'll implement the tags/readers to say how these cases could have been resolved. But it's usually someone who's doing something wrong that makes a complaint about police officers having "something better to do."
I see no problem what so ever using this kind of technology with kids. Under the age of 18, I feel that a parent and school has every right to know where a student is. The school is legally responsible for the child when there and the parents have an obligation to make sure their child is attending school.
Is it perfect, heck no. But this is not a huge issue. Once someone turns 18 and is a legally responsible adult, that is a different story, IMHO.
I'm a teacher...
My first step, as a school sysadmin, would be to block Slashdot, so that teachers would be teaching.
Sig it.
RFID for Slashdot seems to be what half-naked women for advertising. Slap it on any story or product, and shazam - instant hot story. Would the story make it anywhere if the kids carried magnetic cards or coded punch cards like some hotels use for doorkeys, and used them to sign in and out of school by swiping them through the reader? Nah, too boring. But do the same thing with RFID, and suddenly it's ACLU time. Never mind that the cards are being used in exactly the same way, only instead of swiping them through the reader they are held next to the reader until it beeps.
I mean, come on, keep it in perspective. They *need* this kind of tracking in Texas. It's just kids now but once they grow up it will make it easier for the administration to find them and execute them for stealing loaves of bread or teaching evolution or whatever else warrants the death penalty in Texas these days.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk