Students Tracked In UK College Via RFID For 1-3 Years

wendyg writes "As part of redeveloping its three-site campus and without consultation with parents or the Information Commissioner, the UK's West Cheshire College installed a highly detailed tracking system using ultrawideband RFID tags handed out to its 14- to 17-year-old students. The system, which cost up approximately £1 million, was abandoned earlier this year because of escalating costs and lack of the functionality the college wanted. The college has been reluctant to answer questions, dubbing privacy campaigner and persistent questioner Pippa King 'vexatious,' and material relating to the trial has been vanishing off the Net. The law requiring parental consent for the use of biometrics in schools (for things like taking attendance and paying for meals) came into force last month. It seems it already needs to be updated."

Comments

no rfid required

[kipsate]

No RFID required to track you all day. Cameras everywhere. Carrying a cellphone? Driving a car?

We already know where you are, and where you're going.

Re:no rfid required

[kipsate]

intercepting cell-network-information

No need. Have wifi turned on? Your phone will dutifully offer its mac-address when you come near the router.

Re:no rfid required

[nurb432]

Sure they are. Unless you are an idiot, with zero budget.

Re:no rfid required

[Obfuscant]

And when defeated you get in trouble,. In a controlled environment its easy to detect defeated/nonfunctional ones.. you have 10 kids in class but only 8 register on the map...

No, more like a phone call to the parents. "Billy hasn't been in class for a week. Could you provide a parent's release or doctor's note, please?" Even though the name of the place was "College", the ages are high school -- 14-17.

And that is the good reason for the tracking system. Attendance for headcount purposes, and so the attendee can be found easily if the parents call saying "his Mom is in the hospital, can you find him and tell him to come home?" When the parents expect schools to keep track of the kids, they get a little unhappy when the schools don't actually keep track of the kids.

Biometrics?

[intermodal]

This isn't biometrics. This is RFID.

Put a stop to this shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who wants to track anyone else. Must first wear a gps enabled public accessable camera 24-7 for 1 full year.

If after that you STILL think it's a good idea. We shoot you in the head.

We haven't tried this yet. I'm sure it can work.

Re:Just get it over with

[roc97007]

> You know, like cellphones, can't take out the battery either.

Can't take the battery out of your smart phone? There's a secret way to turn it completely off: (a) Grab the ends of your smartphone firmly. (b) Twist as hard as you can.

The store will assist you in turning your smart phone back on. [1]

[1] "Gee, I don't know what happened. I just found it like that. Maybe it exploded. This is covered under warranty, right?"

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs

[rijrunner]

So.. someone got their hands on the Marauder's Map..

Training

[nurb432]

Train the next generation to accept it as normal.

UK data protection laws make the next step clear

[Bruce66423]

One of the students or their parents needs to submit a request for all the data held about the student by the college; data protection laws in the UK require ANY data holder to provide this in full for £10 ($17). This MUST include a full record of all that was recorded about them by this system. Once that has been obtained, we will know the reality, rather continue to speculate.

Privacy Aside

[mythosaz]

Not all individual tracking is evil. If they were forced into the system, or they violated privacy laws, then reprimand appropriately and move on.

Traffic has a similar problem. With simple traffic flow measuring, you see that exit 220 was high volume and too crowded, so you expand it. If you had tracked cars end-to-end, you'd have seen that the real bottleneck was the absurdly bad exit 219, which nobody used, since 220 was, albeit slow, still better than taking exit 219.

You can likely simulate student moments from class to class, department to department, and building to building since you know their schedules (must walk from the McKinley building to the Grant building in 10 minutes on Wednesdays at 1:20pm), but figuring out when individual students from individual classes go on their breaks and schedule gaps is a challenge akin to the exit 220 issue, and if you're genuinely interested in planning your new buildings in a way that don't hamper an already busy campus, you track individual movements.

Let tinfoil types opt out.

...or just track their phone's MAC surreptitiously. :)

Mental picture

[PPH]

Steve Irwin, slowly sneaking up on a student with net, tranquilizer gun and tracking device.

"Crikey! These can be meaner than a crocodile if you corner them outside of homeroom."

Re:UK data protection laws make the next step clea

[Inda]

Yep, it's called a Subject Access Request (SAR) and can be used to belt companies over the head. Every UK company claims to follow the Data Protection Act and has certificates plastered in their receptions to show how great they are, but I've yet to find a company that follows the law.

Here's a good tool: send your SAR and wait for the reply. 99% of the time, they will not include the letter you sent them requesting the SAR. This is one piece of documentation you know without doubt they have in their posession. Beat them over the head for failing to comply. Small claims court - arbitration these days - can then be used as the next beating tool.

Have fun.