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Texas High School Student Loses Lawsuit Challenging RFID Tracking Requirement
Chris453 writes "Earlier today, a Texas High School student named Andrea Hernandez and her family lost the first round of the lawsuit filed to prevent her school district from forcing its students to wear RFID badges for tracking purposes. The judge in the case declared that the district's compromise for the student (a badge without the battery) was sufficient and dismissed any First Amendment issues. The badges are RFIDs powered by built-in batteries and one of the concerns was that the badges would be used to track students off-campus. Interestingly enough, the school district claims in court documents that 'The badges do not work off campus (PDF).' However, on their website, the school district confirms that it is conceivable that an off-campus RFID reader could access badge serial numbers, but tries to downplay the significance: 'Therefore, an intruder or "hacker" can only learn that the tag serial number is, for example, #69872331, but that does not provide any useful information. Has the district committed perjury by claiming that the active RFIDs magically deactivate themselves when off school property?"
You're under 18, so not a human being in the eyes of the state, and as such subject to being tracked like cattle.
If it's any consolation, the rest of us are only marginally human beings in the eyes of the state, and are still subject to being tracked like cattle if we go out to anywhere public, or use any service or product. On the bright side, you're getting indoctrinated to it early.
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...the chip in the Smart ID badge also enables school staff to locate a student on a campus with a very large student population.16 The campus is equipped with sensors to read the card and school staff can determine the general whereabouts of the student carrying the card.17 The sensors do not give an exact reading or pinpoint the precise location of a student (e.g. a specific classroom), but it would show whether the student is in a certain wing of the school.18 The Smart ID badges work only within the school campus that has been equipped with sensors to read them.19 The badges do not work off campus.
Sounds like any perjury on their part would hinge on what it means to work and whether the judge allows them to make their own definition of the word.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No. If the "system" "works" in such a way, then once you break that way, that system breaks. Now, you may be left with multiple parts of that system, in different places, and maybe another system could use that piece for it's purpose, but it's not perjury to say that those cards do not "work" off campus, because here "work" is defined by being an active part (ID badge) of an active system (school RFID system), with an intended purpose.
It's sorta weird to see how RFID is associated with privacy. The student is at school, in their physical body, that we all can see with our built-in eyes! Normally, they're accounted for via some "roll-call" in the mornings (or at least that's how we used to do it back in the day), and then that information was sent to the office where it was processed, and a larger set of information was sent to the state, and everyone that was at school that day was accounted for, it's been happening for a long time now. So what if they want to put teachers at all corners of the halls and watch all of the students, what's wrong with that? ...other than it being waaay to expensive for the tax payers to pay the teachers. So instead, they try this idea, and everyone is trying to freak out over a privacy issue. I don't get it, but I'm old and it's probably time that I just move on to yelling at the neighborhood kids about my fine grass.
"The judge in the case declared that the district's compromise for the student (a badge without the battery) was sufficient"
Active RFID tags cost a fuckload of a lot more than passive ones, not to mention they occasionally need the battery replaced. Never mind the privacy issues here, why the hell do we allow public schools to waste so much taxpayer money on frivolous BS like this?
I have two passive RFID badges I use on a daily basis, and they do their thing just fine. Hold it up to the pad next to the door, the door goes "click", done.
...just maybe if she didn't include a hypothesis that wasn't absolutely looney-tunes, she would have a better argument.
Using the bible as a basis for legal argument is dumb. It can be *part* of an argument, to show history, but this whole "mark of the beast" Revelations crap is just crap.
FTFA:
Evangelicals drive around with drivers' licenses with numbers and a photo and other state/work/school IDs. They don't have a religious objection to those. So why is it suddenly a religious objection when it's a high school ID even without an RFID chip?
Someone's telling tall tales here, and it's not necessarily the school being mistaken about the utility of RFID off campus.
I want an argument against RFID badges that doesn't include a batshit-insane argument about Satan, because I think there are legitimate privacy concerns about RFID being trackable outside of their intended environments. But this gets drowned out in the herp-a-derp religiosity, which only paints those with real concerns as shiny-side-out tinfoil haberdashers.
This girl and her dad aren't helping. Not. One. Bit.
--
BMO
Just pop the tag in a microwave oven for a minute or two. No more RFID.
"I don't know what happened. Maybe the Lord don't like RFID tags."
After enough tags go poof, the school administration will probably give up on having you wear one.
Physical tag with barcode? Sharpie the barcode to another number, maybe. Or generate your own barcode and forge a new tag. There are so many possibilities to screw with the administration that it seems like it would be more fun to see how long until they broke.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
"Therefore, an intruder or "hacker" can only learn that the tag serial number is, for example, #69872331, but that does not provide any useful information."
Joe Stalker sits in a car, watches student walk by, and notes the RFID that shows up on his scanner. From that point on the student is trackable by RFID.
Sure, the ID# doesn't provide any personal information by itself, but now any personal information that is found (e.g., follows student to home address) can now be uniquely associated with that student and tracked. The exact reason why a unique ID is useful in the school context is also why it would be equally useful in other contexts. If it works at all, then, yes, it does "work off campus". The fact that you can't access the school's database mapping from RFID to student personal information is irrelevant. Someone could build their own database.
Andrea Hernandez is the student who refused to wear the badge because she believed it was the 'mark of the beast' and offended her religion. This case wasn't just about privacy. It was also about the boundry when a person's religion conflicts with secular regulations.
You probably need it to get to your locker in the first place.
bickerdyke
And how would you get back into the school the next day?
Well, they are about as useless off-campus as my thrown away bank documents that anyone with a decent brain could turn into money. People have been concerned about this same issue for years with passports--it just takes one terrorist to find out there's an 'american' in the room by scanning... and, well, you know the end of the story.
I'll bet if they gave each student a free cell phone (which "may or may not" contain tracking technology) that they can keep with themselves during school, they'd be ALL over that!
You can however use it to track location once you know who holds what badge number.
Most slashdotters do not have these active RFID units, we have passive ones with much shorter useful ranges.
The student should just remove the battery at the end of each school day.
Easy Fix... Give her two badges. Once see determines the one that is the Serial number "of the Beast" she can turn that one in.
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
And after all, these kids are a product of their generation!
*rimshot*
They're being totally unreasonable. According to the legal document linked, the school actually offered to compromise and allow her to wear a badge with no RFID chip at all. They just needed to give her something with a barcode or whatever so she could check out books in the library and pay for school lunches under the new system. The dad still refused because the badge was now "the mark of the beast" and they would not "go against the teachings of the LORD." [emphasis not mine]
Thing is, she already carries a badge every day under their current system. He's claiming that a simple piece of ID has now become the work of Satan because someone asked to put an RFID chip in it, even if they change their mind and agree not to.
Every student should refuse to wear the badges. They don't have to destroy the badges or anything like that. Just get together and toss them in a big pile. Problem solved. They're not going to suspend every single student. Of course I come from the tail end of a generation where burning draft cards, holding sit-ins and other acts of civil disobedience were not such a foreign idea.
Proverbs 21:19
When I was in school (public school, pre-university) there was no student ID. We just went to class, learned, did after school activities (if desired) and then went home. Alas, the public schools have become police states with lockdowns, gates, guards, and metal detectors. No wonder students are not learning.
Heck, I was trusted enough to be given a physical key to get into our computer lab (8 Apple II's) in the afternoon to work on them.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
I fall into that heavy geek group of go-fuck-yourself when you want to search me, track me, or otherwise invade my privacy or my right to not be cattle. However, I could do without people like her standing up and taking on that position, publicly. The taint of religious idiocy just contaminates everyone else who actually takes issue with it for real-world concerns and sensibilities that don't involve the battle of two deities and an attempt by some "new world order" to track a human being by some goofy stamp at the behest of the super evil devil guy.
It's kind of like I'm sure everyone (including myself) felt when they saw Alex Jones "defending" our second amendment. Just a collective shout of "shut the fuck up, you birther, truther, new-world-order, end-of-the-world, religion spewing dipshit -- you are speaking in front of the world and making every other person who gives a shit about gun rights look like a fucking lunatic by association!".
Why couldn't she just say "hey, I take issue with this on the same grounds that any other person would have the right not; not on some silly religious preclusion"? It's like when I see all these news reports about the shitty behavior of the TSA when it comes to people in wheel chairs, or elderly nuns, or toddlers, or war veterans -- as if somehow it's wrong to violate them, but if you're just a regular every day everybody else, then fuck it.
Gah. This whole thing is just frustrating as hell. If another student has the guts to stand up to this, I hope they do it without the trappings of crap she came with. Unfortunately, I guess this also sets precedent for whoever the next student is and they won't get anywhere. Meh.
Counterpoint: I would have liked to see her be successful. There is no reason for government to be operating schools. In an ideal situation, government provides a stipend for education and the student picks an appropriate school. Private schools are not limited by the Bill of Rights and can implement whatever policies they like with the restriction that they're still trying to attract students. The whole point of the Bill of Rights is to limit government.