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Students In UK Tracked With RFID Chips

Posted by kdawson on from the sees-you-when-you're-sleeping dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ten kids in a pilot program in the Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England will participate in a program that puts RFID chips in students' uniforms to keep track of their whereabouts. A group called 'Leave Them Kids Alone' is opposing the program. Bruce Schneier blogs: '...Now it's easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around the building while you're elsewhere.'"

13 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. oops... by thekm · · Score: 4, Funny

    lost my shirt trying to make the first post...

  2. Well by moogied · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I think this is a very responsible use of "human monitoring". Its voluntary, its in there CLOTHES, and its only useful at school. Something like this I can understand. Now I did not RTFA, but I hope this is only used at exits/entrances to the school grounds. Just as a way of telling if they are there or not. Could be very useful in fire drills, bomb threaths, and lock downs. To tell who is at the school still, or left.

    --
    So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
    1. Re:Well by Cassius+Corodes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here is a radical concept. Stop treating children like animals and start treating them like human beings. Letting kids go off the "leash" is necessary for them to become responsible people. How can they learn to be trustworthy if they are never trusted in the first place?

      Not only that but you are essentially teaching children that there is nothing wrong with being tracked wherever you go - and that can only mean that they grow up to be people who will consent to draconian surveillance schemes because they are used to them.

      --
      Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
    2. Re:Well by camperdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not only that but you are essentially teaching children that there is nothing wrong with being tracked wherever you go - and that can only mean that they grow up to be people who will consent to draconian surveillance schemes because they are used to them.

      Isn't that exactly what we want - a generation who think there is nothing wrong with being monitored? A generation so used to the idea of being watched, that they will start demanding it when it is absent?

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    3. Re:Well by lahvak · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Gee, these two students have been sticking together all day... and they don't even have all the same classes! Send someone to take a peek."

      If the students are that stupid, they deserve to be caught. But it greatly illustrates why a system like this is really bad idea. The last thing we want is for the school administrators and teachers to know which kids hang together all day:

      "Hey, you! Yes, you! I see you have been hanging a lot with that troublemaker Smith lately! I am warning you, you better stay away from him, or you are gotta get it!"

      That'll tell you where they AREN'T. The whole point is to know where they ARE,...

      No it isn't. Really pretty much all the teacher needs to know is that the kid is not in the class. So what is the kid is taking a smoke break in the bathroom? Or if he or she ran to the locker to get a homework they forgot? Or he decided to hang out with his girlfriend in that hidden spot in the school attic instead of going to the class? They are not in the class, when they show up, just ask them why were they missing. You don't need any stupid RFID chip for that. Of course, if a small kid comes to class late, with red cheeks, obviously has been crying, you notice and know something is up, and you act accordingly. I am afraid that with technology such as these chips, teachers will just say "we know where everybody is, we don't really need to pay attention to how they act, how they look like etc."

      The kids are supposed to learn how to be responsible, make their own decisions, and generally become members of the society. They cannot learn that while knowing they are under a constant surveillance with no way to escape.

      If the building is on fire and not everyone is accounted for, wouldn't having a general idea where they might be in the building count as a plus?

      That's pretty much the only legitimate use of the technology. I am quite worried about serious surveillance technologies being introduced "just in the case there is some emergency".

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      AccountKiller
    4. Re:Well by illegalcortex · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Again, as many people pointed out, ALL the RFID-in-your-clothes would give you is that the RFID chip is somewhere. That's why I pointed out that it doesn't tell you a kid is still inside. You still need to do the old fashioned head count, one way or the other. You should put absolutely ZERO faith in a reading or lack of reading from a chip. Otherwise, you're sending firefighters into burning buildings to rescue jackets. Or some kids were jacking around and popped the RFID chips out and one guy is carrying a couple just to mess with the system, and then you miss that there really IS a kid in the burning building.

      So RFID chips in this situation are actually worse than useless.

  3. government logic by User+956 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ten kids in a pilot program in the Hungerhill School in Edenthorpe, England will participate in a program that puts RFID chips in students' uniforms to keep track of their whereabouts.

    Clearly, this measure is needed, as the government doesn't yet have enough cameras to track everyone individually.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  4. reverse psychology by User+956 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think this is a very responsible use of "human monitoring". Its voluntary, its in there CLOTHES, and its only useful at school.

    Yeah, but when you start requiring specific clothes, all you're going to do is entice the teenagers to get naked. You don't want to have naked teenagers on your hands, do you? I know I would. I mean, wouldn't. Right.

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    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  5. Well, we had him on grand theft by istartedi · · Score: 3, Funny

    But the record plainly shows he spent all day up inside the ceiling tiles. Off to search for the real perpetrator, cheery-o!

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    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  6. That fresh from the dryer feeling. by Kaenneth · · Score: 3, Informative

    Clothes fresh from the dryer feel wonderfully warm and cozy, but who has the time to wait for the dryer to warm up all the way?

    A quick, easy solution is to pop your clothes in the Microwave for a few seconds, and Presto!, warm and fuzzy!

    Just don't try it with metal zippers or buttons, nylon might melt, you might start a fire...

  7. two words by drDugan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Child abuse.

    These two words describe a situation where an abuse is perpetrated on a child.

    These people are children, and probably do not have the full context to understand just how bad life can get when they are older, and realize that most of the owrld is out for themselves and there are no parents or teachers around to protect them.

    As for calling it abuse: using tech like this to track other people has not yet become abuse - but I feel strongly that is exactly where this trend will go. It will migrate from voluntary to beneficial to compulsory and eventually, to involuntary. Already in the US and in bars in Latin America do we hear about people putting them in their skin. In the name of safety, in the name of peace, in the name of efficiency, in the name of prosperity and growth and everything good, people will eventually be forced to accept the tracking chip that tracks them cradle to grave. And when we are there, we will look back at these voluntary, ignorant, precious children and realize that it was an abuse to start the process.

    Somehow in this techstrubation system I see research like this that has completely lost touch with what is good about living simply, without gadgets or crutches or machines that inevitably make things better for a minority of people in power, but worse for a majority of not-in-power people.

  8. This just in by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sensors have been added to warn school officials if the students' pants are being worn too low.

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    Have gnu, will travel.
  9. What he said. by Jethro · · Score: 4, Funny

    I would sign up for such a program SPECIFICALLY to mess with it.

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    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.