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Chinese Schools Are Using 'Smart Uniforms' To Track Their Students' Locations (theverge.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the watching-your-clothes dept.

"It's as dystopian as it sounds," opines The Verge: Chinese schools are now tracking the exact location of their students using chip-equipped "smart uniforms" in order to encourage better attendance rates, according to a report from state-run newspaper The Global Times. Each uniform has two chips in the shoulders which are used to track when and where the students enter or exit the school, with an added dose of facial recognition software at the entrances to make sure that the right student is wearing the right outfit (so you can't just have your friend, say, wear an extra shirt while you go off and play hooky). Try to leave during school hours? An alarm will go off....

There are additional features, too, according to a report from The Epoch Times: the chips can apparently detect when a student has fallen asleep in class, and allow students to make payments (using additional facial or fingerprint recognition to confirm the purchase). The uniforms are being used in 10 schools in China's Guizhou Province region, and apparently have been in use for some time -- according to Lin Zongwu, principal of No. 11 School of Renhuai, over 800 students in his school have been wearing the smart uniforms since 2016.

51 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Now THAT... by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now THAT is what you can truly call -

    SpyWear

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: Now THAT... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      I prefer a tuxedo wrapped in an Aston Martin.

  2. Next step is by bobstreo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    mandatory tracking implants.

    No implant? No food, no travel.

    If/when you're detected, you'll probably be detained at a "police" station until you're moved to a nice relocation site under a death sentence.

  3. A real working slippery slope by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Dog collars are next. It's only logical. A mere 'alarm' is no fun. Ain't authoritarianism sexy? Bunch of dirty old men running the government

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:A real working slippery slope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why stop there, shock collars for the win! If you're going to control your populous, you can't stop at half-ass.

    2. Re:A real working slippery slope by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Quite a few of dirty young men and women of all ages like this too. Somebody does enable these "dirty old men", you know.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:A real working slippery slope by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 1

      Shock collars? How boring. Explosive Collars like the ones they had in Running Man would be far more entertaining

    4. Re:A real working slippery slope by gtall · · Score: 1

      Do you have these gruesome thoughts on and off, or are you just generally a psychopath?

    5. Re:A real working slippery slope by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Yes, I was assuming the electronic kind.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    6. Re:A real working slippery slope by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      you are the one turning a discussion on children towards sexual fetishes

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    7. Re:A real working slippery slope by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      That's what authoritarianism is, a fetish.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  4. Scary as f*ck ... by Qbertino · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... the way the Chinese are taking the concept of an orwellian state further to unseen depths on a biweekly basis, is it not?

    Folks we're going to be in some super-bizarre global Cyberpunk society in 2 decades from now if this catches on globally and it ain't going to be half as cool as in a roleplaying game, a Stevenson/Gibson novel or some bladerunner movie sequel - it will just plain suck, big time. I don't want this and neither do you. Talk to you folks about this, we are the opinion leaders when it comes to IT and we need to wake up as many as possible before it's too late.

    My 2 eurocents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I guess this is like 1984 as seen from the Eastasian point of view... except it’s really happening.

      Man, this is scary stuff.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... the way the Chinese are taking the concept of an orwellian state further to unseen depths on a biweekly basis, is it not?

      Don't kid yourself that this is only in China, although yes it is scary as fuck.

      RFID tags in clothing has been a thing for roughly a decade now.
      https://rfid4u.com/rfid-for-uniform-and-laundry-tracking/

      The UK has done it
      https://www.engadget.com/2007/10/21/uk-secondary-school-tests-rfid-embedded-uniforms/

      Brazil has done it
      https://www.zdnet.com/article/uniform-computer-chips-track-student-locations/

      India has done it
      http://www.childsafetyindia.com/

      The US has schools that have done it too
      https://www.wired.com/2012/09/rfid-chip-student-monitoring/

      Those are just the ones I remember reading about. I have no doubt plenty of other places are doing it as well.

    3. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by AndyKron · · Score: 1

      It's worse because its really happening

    4. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by renegade600 · · Score: 3, Informative

      but it is already happening globally to some extent think smartwatches and smartphones. they all have gps tracking. then you have your cars and smart homes.

    5. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by Falos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know you're uncomfortable with our forward progress, but you need to think of the

      *shuffles flash cards*

      "Terrorists."

    6. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by fbobraga · · Score: 1

      +1 informative!

      * the parents demanded it in some schools, here in Brazil (it was not an school-only demand: parents demanded more control over his children...) - yes, I think it's scary as f*ck!

    7. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      When kids are at school, you want them to be tracked. Kids have been tracked and monitored at school for decades.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    8. Re: Scary as f*ck ... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      I imagine most of the Eastasians reading this already have an RFID tag on their vehicle and a GPS logger in their pocket, that they don't turn off when they get out of class.

      Some of them may operate with the idea that these troves of data can exist indefinitely with none of the parties involved ever tempted to use or sell it... I'm not sure what gave them that impression.

      The impression that I get is that Eastasia's constitution could use an Information Age Bill of Rights; an amendment enshrining the right to privacy would provide a bedrock legal justification for the necessary regulations. Because as of now, their laws don't even attempt to address the problem.

    9. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      the next time you hear about the US playing world police, remember articles like this one. it will be so, so much worse if the chinese supplant the US as the global super power.

    10. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's a huge difference between "can do something you couldn't do before, but it requires you to have a tracking device" and "are no longer allowed to do something you used to be able to do freely before, unless you have tracking devices."

      The former is an expansion of your choices. You can eschew the new options if you don't like them, like I refuse to use Facebook.

      The latter is a reduction of your choices and freedom.

    11. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by gtall · · Score: 2

      No it won't. Chinese society will explode sooner or later and the bureaucrats running the asylum will be first up against the wall. They have an example to work from.

    12. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by markdavis · · Score: 2

      >"When kids are at school, you want them to be tracked. Kids have been tracked and monitored at school for decades."

      There is a difference between taking attendance and tracking every moment of a child. Watching if they are awake. Watching who they associate with. Watching everywhere they go. Oh, and "watching" also means "storing for future reference." Where does the tracking end? What is next?

      This is bad for anyone but perhaps especially harmful for children- if they grow up thinking they are always being watched by people not there, it will be extremely difficult for them to develop a healthy psyche, "unwatched" morals, a reasonable expectation of "safety", or even any type of free or independent thought/expression. Coupled with a non-free and repressive government, it is just scary as f*** as this thread implies.

    13. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Where does the tracking end?

      As soon as they leave school (the sensor area), or put the RFID chip in aluminum. These chips don't have a very long range.

      What is next?

      Now this is a slippery slope fallacy. Just because schools use RFID in uniforms doesn't mean you're going to be implanted with RFID.

      This is bad for anyone but perhaps especially harmful for children- if they grow up thinking they are always being watched by people not there,

      You already think you're always being watched by people not there. This is not "Always being watched" it's "being tracked at school."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    14. Re: Scary as f*ck ... by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      toll tags only tack places that have readers and on cars that have an tag

    15. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The Communist party has always tracked its education system.
      Uniforms are part of that Communist culture.
      Then who got into the mil, who was politically trusted to travel to the West.
      The Social Credit System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
      Now the Communists want to know where all their trusted people are.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    16. Re:Scary as f*ck ... by gweihir · · Score: 2

      ... the way the Chinese are taking the concept of an orwellian state further to unseen depths on a biweekly basis, is it not?

      Others are doing it as well. Read the Snowden stuff for examples. The only difference is that the Chinese are doing it openly. In some twisted sense that makes it more honorable. The world is really going to hell.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    17. Re: Scary as f*ck ... by GrahamJ · · Score: 1

      While I mostly agree, is not having a phone really a choice today? Soon you won't be able to buy a car that doesn't have its own connection. We have choices today, but they are disappearing fast.

  5. Onward and inward by Frank+Burly · · Score: 1

    I can't help but think that China is creating a guaranteed market for applied AI with their surveillance state the same way the U.S. created a guaranteed market for all sorts of supporting technologies during the cold war.

    The result of this will be lots of innovation not just in the AI itself, but in the hardware, and theoretical space as well.

    Plus China's AI will be working against people who don't want their Social Credit (or whatever) diminished. In the U.S., AI will be working to figure out when you are most receptive to an ad for Tide Pods. So their incentives are greater and their problems will be more demanding.

    I'm not sure how liberal Western democracies (or ordinary Chinese citizens) can win.

    1. Re:Onward and inward by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 1

      That's always been a concern of mine: that the Orwellian model is more economically viable and therefore will out-compete the individualist model. If one country goes down the road of being sufficiently in control of its people that it has a literal command economy to go after any niche it needs to go after, it's hard to see how the reactive model of US/Western capitalism competes.

    2. Re:Onward and inward by ChatHuant · · Score: 1

      the Orwellian model is more economically viable and therefore will out-compete the individualist model

      I very much doubt that's the case, for any normal definition of "viable" - at least for the long term. The centralized nature of an authoritarian economy is advantageous for single large scale pharaonic projects, where a lot of resources can be focused on some goal, with no concern about costs. This is how Russia managed to get the hydrogen bomb so quickly, and how they launched the first satellite and sent the first man in space. But in an Orwellian economy there is no incentive to improve efficiency. The Orwellian state's goal is to maintain the status quo. As an inefficient economy reduces the standard of living of the people, the Orwellian state compensates by lying about it (see the passage in 1984 about Winston's chocolate ratio being "raised"), repressing complaints, and especially keeping ideological purity. War is often a choice, since it helps channel the population's anger outwards, it provides potential material gains from conquered territories and allows the state to suspend peacetime laws and mechanisms that control it. For a real life example, see all the former Communist countries; none of them could compete in productivity with the Western developed economies, even if some, like Russia, had lots of natural resources.

      China is the same; they have managed to grow a lot over the last decades, by basically waging a relentless economic war on the West - plundering their know-how and inventions, using very asymmetrical tariffs and laws, using state intervention to help strategic companies in strategic areas of the economy, and ignoring international laws and regulations that disadvantaged them. But now this model is becoming unstable, because the rest of the world is starting to push back, and because, as Chinese people get better informed about the rest of the world, they're becoming unsatisfied with the status quo. The Chinese state reacts by becoming more and more Orwellian: thoughtcrime is a pretext to filter the information coming into China (see how Google is forbidden there); Big Brother tracks people via RFID and face recognition; thought police enforces conformity (for example, via social credit).

      I don't think any of that will work longer term; my worry is that the Chinese state may emulate Oceania and resort to war as a means to keep the population under control.

    3. Re:Onward and inward by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

      I think you underestimate the good guys, wait and see news will filter out slowly on how Chinese resistance groups subvert tracking tech the important thing is to observe and learn so when they try the same thing here, we'll be ready and we'll have the benefit of experience of those who hit the front lines before we did

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
    4. Re:Onward and inward by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 1

      What if the technology goes beyond what is imagined in 1984 and allows the state to operate without needing to lie? Suppose they admit, "Life is shitty. Suck it up," and the populace still cannot rebel no matter how unsatisfied they become with the status quo? There's a concept of a "water empire" that is basically impossible to rebel against. I worry that China can use technology to make a similar system work ubiquitously. Obviously, no way to test my hypothesis, but it's something to think about.

    5. Re:Onward and inward by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 1

      the populace still cannot rebel no matter how unsatisfied they become with the status quo

      The ruled will always outnumber those who rule. An oppressive, controlling, authoritarian regime can only survive as long as it takes the ruled to realize they have nothing to lose by overthrowing the regime.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    6. Re:Onward and inward by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 1

      Historically, true. Does that necessarily have to be the case going forward? As tech increases the ability of one person to control power, do we reach a tipping point where rebellion becomes impossible? For example, one person could command a fleet of drones to hold a whole population hostage. That's a big departure from any historical model.

  6. Re:Must've been that one kid by helpfulcorn · · Score: 1

    North Korea is a lot closer, but China certainly sometimes seems to want to play catch up.

  7. It's not that creepy. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Informative

    I work at a perfectly ordinary school in the UK. We issue all students with chips - in the form of identity cards. These cards contain a photo of the student and a simple RFID chip. They serve as passes to open doors, as identifiers for paying for lunch, as their library card, and for identifying themselves to the printer-copiers. They are also supposed to be an essential part of our safeguarding procedures, because without these cards any teenager could wander in and pose as one of our students - though in practice this doesn't work so well, because students are constantly losing, forgetting or defacing their cards. The girls in particular often hold the view that their photo is the ugliest thing ever taken, and will scratch it off of their badge rather than allow anyone to glimpse their shameful image. Students also routinely body-slam the doors to force the magnetic locks open, or loiter outside waiting for someone else to come through, because they left their badge at home or lost it. Issuing RDIF badges is a very common practice - schools have been doing it for years.

    So some schools in China put the ID chips into the uniform. It's the obvious next step: An identifier that, hopefully, the horrible creatures won't lose or destroy within a week.

    The only thing we don't use the cards for is attendance. Too easy to defraud - if we did that then any student could bunk off for the day and just lend their badge to a friend to beep them in. I suppose facial or fingerprint recognition could fix that, if you can get it working reliably.

    1. Re:It's not that creepy. by renegade600 · · Score: 1

      at least those RFID cards don't have gps tracking as the chinese uniforms supposedly have.

    2. Re:It's not that creepy. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

      I doubt the uniforms really have GPS tracking. Simple issue of battery life and cost. More likely it's just a long-range RFID tag, and a bunch of readers dotted around the school that pick up every time a student passes by. Explains why they aren't tracked outside of school.

    3. Re:It's not that creepy. by SuperDre · · Score: 1

      And that's exactly how they 'fix' that problem, there is also a camera with facial recognition, so if the face doesn't match the uniform all bells go off.. (but I wonder if you can get out of a window (and later back in)).

  8. Re:Must've been that one kid by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More than one. Apparently about 30% of US citizens find authoritarianism pretty cool if it is presented right to them. Explains a lot. Not that the rest of the world is much better. Dark times.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  9. intestinator. by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    intestinator.

  10. China does its own thing by shufflingb · · Score: 1

    Their society has rules and if a citizen abides by the rules they progress. If you do not you will be crushed. If you wish to change the rules, then you work within the system to make it happen. In short, state governance operates much like how a company works. Witness the pace of change in China; it can be far more efficient than a multi-party Western democracy.

    Only time will tell if it is a better than a Western democracy. However, it's hard to imagine at the moment that any Westerners, Europeans with their Muslim terrorists and Americans with their mass shootings and the like, are really in any position to lecture the Chinese on dystopian futures.

  11. Only news because China. by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

    Famously, Amazon does the same to their warehouse employees. I've also read several articles where creepily detailed RFID tracking has been used on secondary school pupils in the US. Hell, China probably subcontracted or copied the school systems in the US.

    --
    Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
  12. Re:Must've been that one kid by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Ah, yes, the myth of the "noble leader". One of the main ways authoritarians justify their deep desire to dominate everybody and to force everybody to live like them. Here is news for you: It is not true. Such leaders do not exist or rather the people that could be such leaders have no desire at all to be leaders. Hence leaders self-select for being non-noble leaders. The thing authoritarianism then adds is a lack of checks and balances.

    In other words: People like you are part of the problem. Sorry.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  13. Freedom by GrahamJ · · Score: 1

    Regarding red light cameras I frequently say that if you're automatically caught for any infraction then you are not truly free. I'd say the same here except that in China that's already a given.

  14. Re:Must've been that one kid by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

    Well that explains a lot about how so many people voted for Hillary.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  15. Re:Must've been that one kid by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Oh, yes. Of course, those with hunger for power learn early that they need to be able to pretend to have leadership qualities.

    So while there certainly are people among us who would be great leaders, even though they would likely have to be forced into it, we have no process identifying them and for keeping that selection process non-corrupted. If we had that, we could finally get good leadership. But we do not. Hence any form of authoritarianism will have somebody or some clique on top that is really bad. And that means the only think working to some degree is a system of checks and balances and limited power for any one individual.

    And a question: Why are you all posting as ACs? Is the fear of the secret police already so great among you? People self-censoring is a very, very bad sign and not even using a pseudonym is self-censorship.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  16. Re:TIME TO NUKE CHINA by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    Or the US, as they do just as much pollution, poisons and enviromental destruction with much less people.... So if you're gonna nuke China, also nuke the US..

  17. Re:Must've been that one kid by gx5000 · · Score: 1

    Yes but China has the tech that NK doesn't and the money to push it through.
    Why isn't the West standing up and saying WTF?
    Isn't this the pinnacle of human rights violations?
    Coming to a city near you as soon as they take your money away and force you to use electronic funds.

    --
    End of Line.