A debate over whether or not RFID chips should be used to track students in public schools has sparked an interesting debate online. Two San Antonio, TX schools have implemented an RFID tracking policy as part of their safety initiatives. Are these schools taking it a bit too far?
I have many not-so-fond memories of school. Teachers made it abundantly clear that students had very limited rights to privacy, and that we were pretty much sub-citizens between the hours of eight and four. This was one of my least favorite parts of growing up, and I hear the same complaints made today by students I’ve met through my work at LockerGnome and through family.
There are some very valid reasons for this. Students aren’t legal adults, so their well-being is entrusted by the parents to the school to keep them safe. The cause of safety has always been a controversial reason to take often drastic steps in society. Security is, to me, one of the more dangerous words in the English language. It’s been used since the dawn of history to justify a variety of travesties on mankind.
That said: Is the implementation of RFID in schools really an action that crosses the line?
Schools Have a Responsibility to Keep Track of Students
Let’s be clear on one thing. Nothing scares a parent more than the potential loss of a child. When they’re unable to care and watch over them, that duty falls to the school district. Overcrowded and often chaotic halls, open campuses with a variety of exits, and a limited teaching staff make it extremely hard to keep track of everyone. If a student wanders off campus to meet friends and skip classes, it creates a small panic among staff as they try to find out if the disappearance was intentional or malicious. It’s not a good situation for teachers or parents to be in. This is the justification that schools are using to make policies like this possible.
Location Leads to Assumptions and Misplaced Judgements
On the other hand, do you really need your every movement tracked? Does the principal’s office need to see every trip to the bathroom? Imagine being in an area in the courtyard where something happened and your location being used to accuse you of taking part in the incident. With lack of physical evidence, there plenty of reasons your exact location could be used to accuse you of something to which you were actually oblivious. It happens, and school officials are hardly detectives. There isn’t much burden of proof required to suspend a student.
In my old high school, there were social groups that spent their lunch hour in different parts of campus. I remember hearing teachers talk over the walkie talkies about the different groups, and incidents that took place. Your location on campus puts you in a category that the staff uses to assume a lot about you. The last thing I would want is my location becoming another avenue of judgement.
Conditioning Youth of Today to Tracking
Tracking anyone’s location conditions them to accept tracking as part of their lives. This is also an element of virtually every tyrannical dictatorship in history. Mao, Hitler, Kim Jong-il, and Stalin tracked their citizens and categorized them. Certain citizens were only allowed to visit specific parts of cities, and their whereabouts had to be reported to the government. This is an aspect of tyranny, and it’s one to which we have to be very careful about desensitizing students.
Comparing RFID tracking in schools to tyrannical dictatorships is a bit extreme, but what students are learning in school through habit or educational influence shapes who they will be as adults. Do we want a generation that grew up being tracked and traced by an institution?
Still, any teacher will tell you that having an unexpected empty chair in class is never a good thing. It falls on the faculty to make sure students are where they should be, when they should be there. Perhaps this is just the most efficient and only feasible way to do it.
I’ll throw this question to you, the reader: Do you believe that RFID chips should be forced on students in public schools?
Image: NISD
RFID have there ways to be used. But even in school this is a gross violation of the Constitution. Its an illegal search and seizure of what privacy we have left. Even in school people have the right to go where they want. It may not be the best decision But that is how you learn from your mistakes. And pay for their consequences. With me i don’t like RFID in any ways actually I would block them in any way I could. But most of our clothes today have RDIF in them. Whether they say it or not. To Track people or children are different they do have a choose not to were them or not, even in school. They do not have to do everything the school Or “Govt” says to do. I never did.I know no-one who have done everything The school has asked them to do. I have to say on this issue specifically if you don’t want to be tracts do not listen to what the school says by any means. This is one of the few things I will never obey nor should any except for the military. The military owns you, This comes to “The mark of the beast” where you cannot buy or sell anything without the Mark. This is a test school Its all it is. How ready are the people to lose what freedoms they have left. By me saying this i know I will be put much, much higher on a watch list. I know that. I will never allow anyone to put a chip under the skin of me even if its for medical purposes. I will go without medical I will only live about a year Without meds. I Say No active satellite based chips this is what they are. Those chips are probably not strong enough to go to satellite. But I don’t know Without looking at the tech specs of the company that makes them. No RFID For any reason.
Why would anyone even suggest this? It’s 100% immoral and a breach of human rights.
this is wrong! i would hate people always knowing where i am it sickens me to even think about it, but if everyone had one it would cut crime!!!
What’s the next step for these Orwellian schools, bars on the windows and a high outside fence? Oh, wait, we already have that. It’s called prison.
Fortunately this isn’t very big, Being a school student I see both sides. It would be OK to use RFID to allow access to the complex (Such as doors) to stop “Unwanted Guests” but to track is different. However when schools already use key-loggers what do you expect? It’s not right.
I think it is idiotic to require a rfid chip. Besides it isn’t going to ‘track’ their location at all, it has no gps. It won’t help safety, it is outright just useless.
Just cover them in tinfoil, creating a faraday cage that will disable the RFID. But then they will inplant it into their arms and track them for their whole life.
Several thoughts on this, but safe to say lots of the reaction on this is overly emotive.
First of all, is this passive or active RFID? There is an important distinction between the two and on no articles that I have seen so far has this most fundamental piece of information been forthcoming.
If passive, this is point in time windows of visibility, nothing more.
If active, then it is real time visibility and has more of a tracking theme.
Let’s assume it is active given the general theme of comments posted thus far.
To suggest there is no safety benefit is flawed. An active RF system would allow a school to quickly and efficiently identify where it’s first responders are in the case of an incident (an injured student) for instance.
Likewise in the case of a catastrophic incident such as a fire, the very same system could be deployed to great effect in guiding firefighters to specific locations where students are or were last known to be – a benefit not just for the students in danger, but the emergency responders also