US civil society groups are up in arms over the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to keep track of school children. They say the tags infringe on liberty and may encourage forms of discrimination.
RFID is an identification system that enables data to be wirelessly transmitted by, usually, plastic tags to readers that process the data according to the needs of a particular application.
The most common use mooted for RFID tags has been in the retail industry, to keep track of stock holdings such as pallets of goods, and it has also been recommended for various agricultural applications.
The use of RFID tags to keep track of pupils at a school in the US state of California is probably one of the first examples of this kind of use. However, civil rights organisations the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union have given the idea a bad report card.
In a joint press release issued last week, the three organisations said that in the case of Brittan School in California, the RFID device transmits tracking information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under one of the scanners.
They argue that the monitoring of children with RFID tags is comparable to the tracking of cattle, shipment pallets, or dangerous criminals in high-security prisons. "Using this extensive inventory-like tagging is demeaning to children, regardless of age, and creates an atmosphere of disrespect for, and distrust of, students."
The ID badges also include the student`s name, photo, grade, school name, class year and the four-digit school ID number. Students are required to prominently display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times.
"The RFID badges will make it much easier for anyone, not only school officials, to target and find Brittan schoolchildren, both at school and in the community at large. Forcing children to wear badges around their necks displaying their personal information also exposes them to potential discrimination since the name of their school may disclose their religious beliefs or social class," the organisations say.
According to the statement, security experts have argued that using RFID technologies to track schoolchildren does not adequately answer school-related security concerns such as limiting the risk of kidnapping or preventing the entry of strangers on school grounds. The security gained, they say, is not worth the money spent and the privacy and dignity lost.
"The goal of making children safer could be achieved by spending the money elsewhere, from education programmes for children and their parents, to the hiring of school guards."
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