Student RFID Tracking Suspended from School

ewhac writes "As reported earlier, a Sutter County, CA, elementary school unilaterally took the dubious step of forcing students, under penalty of disciplinary action, to wear RFID badges with their name, grade, and photo. The RFID tags were read by sensors placed above classroom and bathroom doors (though the latter had been shut off). The system was ostensibly used to automate attendance-keeping. Well, InCom Corp., the company that provided the tech free of charge to the school, has abruptly pulled out, without explanation. The school superintendant claimed to be, "disappointed," at the development. However, some parents are not mollified, and vow to permanently keep such people-tracking technologies out of their schools."

Comments

How was this supposed to actually work?

[Dan East]

Forcing the students to wear the badges isn't an issue. The real problem would be a student hiding a badge somewhere deep in their book bag and registering an absent student as present.

I'm sure the faculty was smart enough to recognize this problem, thus they would have been performing manual attendance to audit the system. Plus every time a student forgot their ID, or a part of the system failed, or there's a power outage, they would have to resort back to the manual system.

IMO the heart of the problem is misapplying technology. Is taking attendance really such a time-consuming, difficult task to perform to require tens of thousands of dollars of equipment and the dispersal of hardware to every single student? A teacher should recognize their students, and should be cognizant of empty seats that are normally occupied.

Dan East

Bruce Schneier's thoughts on this

[wk633]

Some of the feedback is interesting as well. Basically, the 'solution' doesn't solve any problems, and it's money that could be better spent on teachers and books. Yes, I know, this one was 'free', but it won't always be free.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/01/fing erprinting_1.html

right..

[Cryptnotic]

If I were a parent I would not want my child walking around with a RFID tag that could give potential assailants information they could use to manipulate my child. If they actually had the child's name, grade on the tag I am sure someone would figure out how to get it.

Nevermind the fact that most kids who are molested are molested by someone they know, like an unkle, grandfather, teacher, coach, or someone else who already knows their name, age, who their parents are, et cetera.

Anyway, this is silly since RFID's are just like a serial number. You need access to the school's database to see what serial number corresponds to which student.

Re:Pedophiles these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's one from the U of M.
>Myth #2:Most sex crimes are commited by strangers
>...
>Additionally, the most recent data from the
>National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
>indicates that in more than one-half of all
>reported cases of child sexual abuse, the abuser
>was a parent or step-parent.

http://www.med.umn.edu/fp/phs/sht/shtv1n07.htm

Not that you were actually expecting a response from anyone

Re:As a high school student myself...

[flint]

Ten years after TLO the Supremes ruled that public school officials act in loco parentis "for many purposes" and made a distinction between TLO and search/seizure cases. From Veronia vs Wayne:

In T. L. O. we rejected the notion that public schools, like private schools, exercise only parental power over their students, which of course is not subject to constitutional constraints. T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 336. Such a view of things, we said, "is not entirely `consonant with compulsory education laws,' " ibid. (quoting Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 662 (1977)), and is inconsistent with our prior decisions treating school officials as state actors for purposes of the Due Process and Free Speech Clauses, T. L. O., supra, at 336. But while denying that the State's power over schoolchildren is formally no more than the delegated power of their parents, T. L. O. did not deny, but indeed emphasized, that the nature of that power is custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of supervision and control that could not be exercised over free adults. "[A] proper educational environment requires close supervision of schoolchildren, as well as the enforcement of rules against conduct that would be perfectly permissible if undertaken by an adult." 469 U. S., at 339. While we do not, of course, suggest that public schools as a general matter have such a degree of control over children as to give rise to a constitutional "duty to protect," see DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 200 (1989), we have acknowledged that for many purposes "school authorities ac[t] in loco parentis," Bethel School Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 684 (1986), with the power and indeed the duty to "inculcate the habits and manners of civility," id., at 681 (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, while children assuredly do not "shed their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate," Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969), the nature of those rights is what is appropriate for children in school.