Using RFID and Wi-Fi to Track Students

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports on a proposal to use RFID and wi-fi to track students wherever they go on campus: 'Battery-powered RFID tags are placed on an asset and they communicate with at least three wireless access points inside the network to triangulate a location.' At The Wireless Event in London, 'Marcus Birkl, head of wireless at Siemens, said location tracking of assets or people was one of the biggest incentives for companies, hospitals and education institutions to roll out wi-fi networks.' The article points out that integration of RFID and wi-fi raises the possibility that RFID can be used for remote surveillance."

Comments

Re:Paranoia without hope?

[geekoid]

"Do you think that university administrators have such a vested interest in vending machine habits and profit maximization that they want to data mine their own students?"

you bet. If not them, then some accountant trying to maximize profits will want to see that data.
The more data you collect the more ways people will want it sliced and diced. Including looking for breaks in 'patterns' to determine suspicious behavior.

I do know some government agency all ready do that and some people in law enforcement want to get reports of when people break patterns. Right now they want this.

What I want to see in my country is some guarantees in laws and policies that protect people from willy nilly searching of their habits. Once that is in place, I will want to see this done everywhere. There are some great pieces of general knowledge that can be garnered. OTOH, having an email sent to my device everytime I get close to a shop is a feature I don't want.