Brazilian Schoolchildren Tagged By Computer Chips

New submitter smi.james.th writes with an AP story, and extracts from it: "'Grade-school students in a northeastern Brazilian city are using uniforms embedded with computer chips that alert parents if they are cutting classes, the city's education secretary, Coriolano Moraes, said Thursday.' Personally I don't find this too inspiring. Mr. Orwell certainly has warned the world about this."

Comments

Oh the possibilities

[schrodingersGato]

I sure hope pedophiles in Brazil can't hack or learn to hack. Holy crap this is bad on so many levels

Re:Oh the possibilities

[Anonymous Coward]

Finding kids, no. But, like any anti-social looking for a victim, it would help them find children in compromised situations where neither the victim, their family, nor the public will prevent the act, nor prosecute the offender. Or, do you think these fucks actually pick someone at random?

Re:Oh the possibilities

[hawguy]

Let's say the pedo-hacker, good at what he does, has a preference: a young girl, aged 13, blonde, tiny. Let's say he goes on facebook and finds that preference: name, location, school they go to. Let's say he knows how to get into this chip-system, which might just list their names or giveaway-details (which may or may not be the case, but for argument's sake, it does). Oh hey, there's lil' Jenny McVulnerable, waiting outside for the bus stop.

Yea I know, it's not the USUAL, but things like this bring up the UN-usual.

Since he's such an uber-hacker, he could just hack into the school's ID card database, and download student pictures, home address, parents' names, possibly siblings and emergency contact info, then he can intercept the kid and say "omg Josh, your mom Mary and Uncle Joe were in a terrible accident, your sister Maria is already at the hospital, they sent me to pick you up".

This RFID system doesn't add a risk that's not already there.

Re:Oh the possibilities

[EdIII]

People are not assets, and should not be tracked.

A perceived increase in security is never worth a tangible loss in freedoms.

The danger is the children growing up and thinking this is okay everywhere they go. It is most emphatically, not okay .

There can be exceptions, for adults only, in high security businesses. In those situations it will be a choice, and most likely well compensated. Tracking systems like this should never, ever, be acceptable in public and daily life, and certainly not for children. They should grow up thinking such systems are weird, intrusive, and only required in the most serious of circumstances.

People need to fucking grow a pair and realize that life is dangerous. Have some courage and face life head on, and stop being such cowards trading away your freedoms at every corner for shiny trinkets and illusions of a safer world with a better informed authority.

I will reiterate....

[wanzeo]

Technology CANNOT solve social problems. It can only hide symptoms.

Re:I will reiterate....

[thegarbz]

It can SHOW the symptoms. Seriously every school in the world already does this kind of checking. A roll call at the start of the class is the normal way.

Throughout all of my highschool I've been wondering why we don't do something more productive with technology to automate this waste of the first 5 minutes of every class and incorporate all other services as well such as library loans with technology such as RFID.

To be perfectly clear GPS tracking of students off school property is completely unacceptable, but this is not the case. This looks like a basic system to see who is in the class. An automated roll call. It's not solving anything, it's simply automating what we do already.

PoppyCock

[WindBourne]

Declaring that this is bad is a joke. These are tags in the uniforms of CHILDREN. It is as orwellian as putting RFID in my dogs. I would love to know if my teens cut school. And I am just fine with using a tag in their clothes.

Now, if they want to do this to an adult, or forced embed it in a human, that is a DIFFERENT issue.

Re:PoppyCock

[Trepidity]

Ah yes, the conservative mentality: children are pets of their adult owners.

Re:PoppyCock

[causality]

Now, if they want to do this to an adult, or forced embed it in a human, that is a DIFFERENT issue.

If you had always been tagged from the time you were a small child, and had all your life to get used to the idea, would you still think so?

That's the danger.

It's early conditioning (indoctrination) for a future time when it will be easier to justify (excuse) doing this to adults. Right now lots of adults feel the way you do about tagging or chipping adults. That makes it politically difficult or impossible to do that right now. That's about the only thing stopping it because politics is full of authoritarian types who would love to do it.

Re:just put them in the microwave

[Gonoff]

That is probably illegal in Brazil. Even if it is legal to do that to the kids, their parents might object.

Re:Get used to it

[epyT-R]

The actions those kids take when not in class could have a harmful and costly impact on others (vandalism, illegal drug use causing health problems that must then be paid for, a lack of education resulting in more stupid grown-ups that can't hold a job and drag on the economy, etc.). In addition, plenty of parents want their kids to go to school because it keeps them safe and is ultimately good for them.

I guess you didn't take into account the psychological harm from obsessive, oppressive, non-stop surveillance into every aspect of life.. your statement here is also quite black and white.. school is not pure 'good' or pure 'bad', nor does cutting a class equate to 'vandalism' or drug use (which is also not pure 'good' or pure 'bad.')

This doesn't just apply to kids, it applies to everyone. The actions any person takes impacts one's neighbors, and as such everyone has direct incentives to encircle everyone else in systems of control. This isn't a matter of "them" wanting to take "our" freedoms away. It is am matter of "us" wanting to make sure "they" don't do things that have a negative impact on "us." This principle is universal.

and this is the attitude that will ensure we do live out that dystopia of infinite control of others = infinite freedom for the individual. is that really what you want?

I knew this would happen - and more worse to come

[Taco Cowboy]

Back in the 1980's when they started tagging dogs and cats, - by inserting a chip into the neck of the animal, - in the name of "identify owners of lost pets", I already wondered aloud when will they start doing the same thing to human beings

This Brazilian example only tag students via chips embedded in their school uniform

Wait till someone come up with similar scheme with what they did to dogs and cats - insert chips into the body of human beings - and I am sure they can come up with whatever grandiose reason to justify what they do

It would be not that dis-similar to the tattooing of Jews by the German Nazis

Those who do not learn from history will find ways to repeat it

Re:Lo-tech hacking

[EdIII]

And what purpose does this serve? have teachers completely forgotten how to take attendance? I know it's low tech, but it's a whole lot more accurate, cheaper, and much less orwellian.

Not to mention it puts the responsibility with an adult that should already be investing time, energy, and interest in the child's welfare. Not only will that always be better than an automated system, it's also the right thing a teacher should be doing anyways.