General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStudents will be tracked via chips in IDs
Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.
District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.
Northside, the largest school district in Bexar County, plans to modify the ID cards next year for all students attending John Jay High School, Anson Jones Middle School and all special education students who ride district buses. That will add up to about 6,290 students.
The school board unanimously approved the program late Tuesday but, in a rarity for Northside trustees, they hotly debated it first, with some questioning it on privacy grounds.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/Students-will-be-tracked-via-chips-in-IDs-3584339.php#ixzz1vtE8zMQp
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Only people who belong in a school building should be permitted entry for security purposes.
ananda
(28,895 posts).. for health and emergency reasons so many people might need access: parents, relatives, emt's, etc.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Commercial buildings handle this all the time.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)After all, some extra security theatre in institutions which are already objectively some of the safest places in the country - despite the hysteria in the media and from kids-these-days golden-agers - is more important than putting that money towards paying staff, buying supplies and making sure the buildings are structurally alright.
(And yes, it absolutely is a one-or-the-other thing in the current environment, given the disdain towards education funding lately.)
LeftyMom
(49,212 posts)and installing a big window.
If somebody nobody recognizes walks in, somebody walks over and greets them.
edited for freeper spelling
MadHound
(34,179 posts)My guess is that several of these kids will figure out a way around RFID chips. It isn't that hard to do.
cali
(114,904 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)Soon technology will allow the government to know where we all are. OTOH, kids may never be kidnapped or murdered again.
MadHound
(34,179 posts)And just think, you bought your own shackles.
However anybody who is determined enough can beat out technology. RFID chips are actually pretty easy to beat. All this really is is an exercise in exerting authority and getting kids used to the idea of being tracked wherever they go(for their own good of course:eyes
treestar
(82,383 posts)When you go through those, they know your car went through at least.
All for our "convenience." No slowing for toll booths and looking for change. Though nobody seems to ask why don't we do away with those things. The west has freeways and survives.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)Ex:
I'm going to skip 4th period. Here, take my card and scan it for me.
If that option doesn't work, they'll find others. But it will be easier for admins to become overconfident and over-reliant on believing whatever they see on the screen as the official count.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Students of every generation find ways to outwit the oldies, no matter what the technology.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)I think there are much better directions, but they need a shift to look at process through a larger priorities lens.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Otherwise an attacker can simply kill a kid, take the card, and enter the school.
suffragette
(12,232 posts)that provide false security at great economic and personal privacy cost and look instead at other methods and models such as enhancing the process of education so students look forward to being at school and employ simpler methods such as buddy/group systems for learning that have accountability and attendance built-in and that encourage community systems people can carry into their adult lives.
Finland comes to mind for this.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)You would know where the child was.
As soon as the child was missing, they could be located. So that would have to make it a lot less possible to do.
It wouldn't stop it where no one realized the child was missing in time though. Still, some of these attacks could be thwarted because it would give people a jump on where the kidnapper took the child, information not available before.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)RFID readers are very short-ranged, for one; they're not sci-fi-esque transmitters that can track a person outside of specific locations within a building with a system designed to track those specific cards in the first place.
For another, you're making the tremendous assumption that the card would be on the student's person all the time anyway.
So no, as soon as the kid was off school grounds they'd be no easier to trace than I am. It's theatre - expensive theatre that'll benefit some companies marketing fear, but theatre nonetheless.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Though why couldn't the kid just take the student ID out of his/her pocket when they get home?
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)S/he will be counted as absent. Or AWOL during some mandatory school activity.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)LOL. In all honesty, I'm not so worried, but unfortunately, we do need to be vigilant as this system DOES have the potential to be abused.
ThomThom
(1,486 posts)then they can follow all of us
and then they can link it to drones to watch us
dana_b
(11,546 posts)"I forgot it today." I suspect there will be a rash of "forgetfulness".
octothorpe
(962 posts)The kids who wouldn't usually try to break the system will still go to class as usual, but the ones who wanna fuck off, will find ways out of it.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Albeit with an ID badge with a magnetic strip, not RFID. Likely any employee of a large tech campus has the same. I (and my boss) can look at my "badge-in" and out times on the company LAN. It isn't used to track internal locations, though.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)Poof no RFID.