By Jo Best, 8 July 2004 17:10
NEWS The rights and wrongs of RFID-chipping human beings have been debated since the tracking tags reached the technological mainstream. Now, school authorities in the Japanese city of Osaka have decided the benefits outweigh the disadvantages and will now be chipping children in one primary school.
The tags will be read by readers installed in school gates and other key locations to track the kids' movements.
The chips will be put onto kids' schoolbags, name tags or clothing in one Wakayama prefecture school. Denmark's Legoland introduced a similar scheme last month to stop young children going astray.
RFID is more commonly found in supermarket and other retailers' supply chains, however, companies are now seeking more innovative ways to derive value from the tracking technology. US airline Delta recently announced it would be using RFID to track travellers' luggage.
Comments
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1. Michael Litwak
Is paranioa what we wish to teach our children? Do we really offer protection when we electronically monitor them? How does it feel to be treated in the same manner as a criminal, as cattle, as a product? Are those who do the monitoring willing to be monitored themselves? How much restraint will the next genneration show, when it's their turn to do the monitoring? Let's not sell out real liberty for the false promise of greater security.
2. anonymous
I just wondered if this was another April Fool!
3. Alan Paterson
No, spelling - that's what we need to teach our children.
4. anonymous
I'm sorry, this is just wrong. If their parents are so afraid for their children, why don't they arrange it so the parents put the kids past the front doors and pick up them up there? treating kiddies like they are simply a commodity. . . or are the school authorities trying to make it convenient at the Kids' expense
5. anonymous
Umm, hello? How many of you have cardkeys? Guess what - that's RFID! This is no different than issuing a card key to each student, just like we have at work. And, just as cardkeys, you only get tracked when going through chokepoints such as entrances and exits. No big deal here - and I'd prefer people spend more time worrying about their kids' exercise habits, spelling and math than this ;-)
6. Aimea Saul
"If you choose to give up freedom for security, you shall have neither"
~Forgot Who Said That
7. anonymous
Can you imagine the chaos that could be caused by naughty children swapping schoolbags or items of clothing, or stealing items and then placing them in dangerous locations?
A wonderful example of the misuse of technology.
8. Bill Hodgetts
This has to be the work of a government sponsored council or very similar - someone without the first concept of actual security - teach children what dangers are, don't pretend technology can do it.
Secondly, presumably these are young children who will in error wear each others clothing or school bags etc etc at least if my grandson is a reasonable example!
9. anonymous
Reputable source please!!!
10. Electric Jiggalo
What in the HELL are these people thinking?
"err yeah, while yer in there putting that tracker chip in me doc, could you please up my RAM a tad? It seems as though i'm always forgetting where I put my car keys...faster processor too, my girlfriend says im kinda slow!"
11. hive mind
this is great, I can't wait for the brain chip!!!
12. Steve
Put aside all this "tech" stuff and use what they used back when I went to school, a nice, big wooden oak paddle with about 30 holes in it ! Now that would set them straight and keep them in school. Bring back corporal punshiment !! I think some of the parents could use it too !!
13. Patricia Ormsby
Oh wow! A world without hookey. What a boon to humanity.
14. Chuck
When people surrender freedom for security, they deserve neither.
This is not an original quote.
15. Pete Bellamy
The first salvo in the war to implant chips in the world's population. For the control freaks, the logical step is to implant every human being and animal so the human sheep can be kept in their pens.
The law enforcement world must be peeing their pants with joy at this school board's decision.
No more missing children, no more runaways, no more crooks,terrorists, no more pedophiles etc.
The perfect world. But do we really want to live in it?
The next step in Japan will obviously to chip all foreigners as they are criminals, dead beats and not Japanese.
But on the other hand, when a kid goes missing, the idea of being able to GPS track them is very appealing.
16. Mattias Hellstrom
This is great for parents with important careers that have no time to bring up their children.
17. anonymous
First these chips went into pets, now they will tag children, then adults.....eventually these chips will become mandatory to sell or to buy anything.
18. squiz
Looks like the end of freedom has started :(
19. Coleman Yee
Cheaper solution: close the gates!
Soon teachers would need to be chipped to make sure they're on time so waiting students don't wander away. Then parents would need to be chipped so that a potential pedophile can't loiter around in the school. Well, soon everyone else will have to be chipped so we know who's going into the schools. I can't wait to get chipped!
20. nat irvin
For some reason, this seems to make perfectly good sense to me. Children are our most vulnerable and prized possession. Privacy is not.
21. anonymous
I heard in 1997 that it would not be long till every child had a chip implanted at birth...Well here it is.
Of course this now means we can be *controlled* from a distance.
We are allowing ourselves to be made into robots.
I think some or all of those suicide bombers could be used in this way already????
(Ed note. Out of interest how can we be controlled by RFID? We'd love to hear your theory as if it's true it's a very interesting angle - especially as you make it sound as though 'they' will be able to actually move us like remote control 'robots'. Sounds scary, what's your scoop?)
22. anonymous
Did you need to be chipped to learn math and algebra?
Why chip? It's a way for RFID companies to make money. So what if it's not that dangerous; it costs money. It's not that dangerous to hire a clown to follow each child around school either. What's the point? There's no point; it's a hyped up need by people who make chips and want to find a place to sell them.
Lose privacy, pay for chips, and in the end.. no difference.. lose some more privacy, pay for barcodes, still children learn the same... sorry i survived without being chipped, your little bastards can too.
23. anonymous
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), Letter to Josiah Quincy, Sept. 11, 1773.
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- President Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826
24. Digital Citizen
Privacy is a dream - Get over it!
If you own a cell phone, use a credit card, send email, or surf the net, then guess what? You've opted-in to the largest forms of behavioral and personal info tracking that exist.
Privacy is a dream that does not exist. Please realize that organizations can, and have been tracking your every transaction.
Since 9/11 privacy is something that we all lost in the name of better security?
Truth be told, security is yet another dream...
25. dbell
Just reading ID tags is not going to keep kids from leaving school. The tags can easily be disabled or masked. RFID is not a 100% proposition even when you want it to work. It would be better to post guards at each entrance if security is really an issue.
26. anonymous
Great idea to track kids...Except that Japanese children are among the most well behaved in the world. On every street corner are alcohol and cigarette vending machines and yet you never see a drunk or smoking child. They even complained that there school week was recently reduced from six days to five.
27. anonymous
Putting RFID chips into clothing or bags of children is merely an exercise in de-sensitisation. If the unwitting proleteriat accept this without question, it will be much easier for the introduction of implantable chips.
It works something like this: The 'official' report is likely to be that RFID tagging works, but is not 100% effective, as clothing and bags can be discarded. However, the revolutionary implantable veri-chip(www.adsx.com) will be touted as the solution to the 'problem'.
"Your children could be protected 24 hours a day by sattelite tracking, if they had an implantable micro-chip under their skin. This harmless device, smaller than a grain of rice is set to reduce cases of missing children by up to 100%. In this dangerous world, with 'terrorists' lurking around every corner and the cases of children being abused and/or abducted on the rise, surely no loving parent would allow their child to remain in danger." ...is the kind of junk we're likely to be spoon-fed by the mainstream media.
The idea is to dupe an unsuspecting public into accepting complete and total control over their minds (slavery without chains), by frightening them into submission. The approach has to be slow, subtle and deliberate, though, lest the epsilon-minus semi-morons should be shocked out of their somnambulistic state and stop the coup.
It's possible to boil a frog in water alive, as long as the heat is increased slowly enough. Turn the heat up too quickly, though, and the frog jumps out of the water(or at least, he tries to!)
The hope lies with the proles, but are they smart enough spot the 'totalitarian tiptoe' and begin to dance to a different tune?
28. mjcrown
Another good resource on rfid is www.printronix.com
29. anonymous
Big Brother is out there. National ID scheme with RFID great idea. Big Boss registers your ID card as an employee, knows where you are, when you got there and when you left. Department stores register when you entered the store and when you left, and if they are realy sneaky what you bought. Fire brigade know if there is anybody in a burning building or a collapsed building without having to enter it. Paramedics and doctors can call up your medical files easily.
30. anonymous
I am just surprised we don't already have RFID tags inside our driver's licenses. Or do we?
31. anonymous
I have read through all the comments to date on this article and as usual I am always dismayed at the "Big Brother" contigent in the world.
As one commentor noted, our children are the most important thing in life. What does it matter if your kid is tracked at school, while they are a minor, by RFID? Does it affect you as an adult? Schools today are constantly doing everything to protect our children, should some peoples complexes about their privacy not allow us to protect our children with whatever means possible? I think not.
32. Malice D. Nightshade
I can see the reason why people would think it a good idea to have tags inserted into their children's schoolbags or clothing, in order to prevent truancy or their child going astray. But I can see this going the wrong way in the very near future, with people being injected with the same tags that dogs and cats have been for the last few years. Soon, I can see it being mandatory for even adults to have tags inserted into their bodies, in order to allow the police and the government complete control over the masses. Sounds a little like 1984 to me.
33. dh
RFID is a sick control device that the establishment can't wait to have in all humans. I make computer chips for a living and the last place I would want a chip is in my childs hand. Shame on you digital angle!
34. Grizzly Bear
Well, I read all the comments and I can say a couple of things: [1] The manufacturers of RFID, having amazed themselves with their "cool" little doodad, are now looking for a market. They have choosen areas areas where there will be the least resistance by claiming the chips will make for safer children and better medical care. I mean, who can argue against safer children and better medical care? Even though, in reality, RFID will not contribute to either. [2] Once they have claimed "success" in these areas, (where "success" is impossible to measure), they will expand their markets to the detriment of humankind. [3] Apparently, the architects of 9/11 were successful, because we now have scores of people willing to give up what separates them from the terrorists - individual civil liberties and basic human rights - for the momentary illusion they are, somehow, "safe" from a poorly defined, nebulous "threat" that has been over-hyped by the government for their own ends .
I live in the US. I am a libertarian. I believe that basic human rights - including the right to privacy, freedom of movement and association, the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of religion and freedom of the press and speech - are threatened by implantable RFID and those that seek to "save us" by their use.
One thing that is missing from these comments. Something that has come up in every technology forum I have pariticipated in on RFID. That is the obvious parallels between implantable RFID chips and the "mark of the beast" described in the book of Revelations in the Bible.
Meanwhile, let me disconnect my computer and fade back up into the Rockies...
35. anonymous
Wow! What a fun crowd. I had no idea the future of all mankind rested in the develpoment of this tiny fragile little chip that can be smashed to oblivion with a feather. Yes, the idea of tagging children seems absolutley absurd and yes the weak minded paranoids of the world will be digging underground shelters to avoid any radio wave activity but none the less this technology is coming and it will become part of our world for better or for worse.
Grizzly Bear, You Rock I want to party with you!
36. Jade Bégin
chip = no liberty forever
37. anonymous
watch Humanspotter by Dutch ChipSkin workin one a chipidentification system for humans.
38. Anonymous
This same paranoia was unleashed when the government instituted Social Security cards. All the same excuses were given as to why this was a bad move, and yet society survived. Sure, there will be abuses of the technology and the system itself, just as there has always been, but those abuses tend to result in improvements and advances rather than any downfall of society.
All this paranoia about having your every move tracked and analyzed fails to take into account the mass amounts of information being fed through the same system, choking any possibility of genuine effectiveness of such a scheme. TOO MUCH INFORMATION will prevent the system from being effective in tracking individuals on a personal scale, unless that individual has given authorities a reason to be tracked more astutely.
Relax. This system is too far advanced in our society to fight it. So get used to it, and come up with equally innovative ways to make it work for you as well.
39. Pierre Taljaard
Wake up! We live in times of crime & mayhem with working parents. I have children & would welcome this at the school. At the school, leaving school, on the bus, of the bus, etc. How many of you use access control at work or give your kids cell phone because you need to know where they are?? It is not "Enemy of the State" rubbish, it cannot be track from more than a few meters away & definately not by satelite
40. anonymous
RE:> "Great idea to track kids...Except that Japanese children are among the most well behaved." Simply not true, in fact, because nowhere in japan checks IDs, it's common practice to go to bars after HighSchool classes, and there is plenty of underage smoking. I can only surmise that your are either 1) a Japanese rigthwing propagandist, or 2) fooled by Japanese right-wing propagandists.
41. Paul Revere
To The People Who Think This Is A GOOD IDEA: Maybe, in the future, you'll be the servants for those of us who are obviously a little more intelligent than you?
42. fire
Wrong. No one should ever be chipped! You could probably take that to the court of human rights.
43. anonymous
A good idea. I'm a parent and I like the idea of an adult knowing where my child is at all times. I'll support it in the US.
44. anonymous
to all the people who think this is a bad idea.....we have this technology and it should be used to protect the most valuable of all assets...our children...maybe if your child was ripped out of their own bedroom (reffering to 9 yr old girl in FL)
you would feel diferently.
When is comes to protecting my child ..invasion of privacy is not a problem. Also, subcutaneous implants can be removed once the child is an adult.
signed, duhhhhhhhhhhhhh
45. Bobby Lee
Benjamen Franklin said it.
46. anonymous
I put one in my hand last week, less keys for me = happier me. I obey the law so don't give a damn about being able to be identified by a scanner placed within 5cm of my hand and yes that is the max range for my chip, you can't track me by satelite.
47. Dan
What, have we turned into a Country of cowards because of 9-11? Maybe if schools taught actual history, we would all remember that we gave much for our privacy and demanded it!
48. anonymous
This new RFID technology sounds nice but it's never going to happen. Well at least not in the U.S., it goes against the constitution and everything this country was founded on. We as U.S. citizens have rights to our privacy, and these "chips" are stepping way over boundaries.
49. anonymous
If its optional its a great idea. This is an
invaluable backup safety tool for children with intellectual disabilities. It may help insure that if they make a mistake in any transitions and its not caught by a teacher/aid/bus-driver that
it may still be caught and correced.
50. George H
"However" should start a new sentence. Run-on sentences have no place in professional work. As minor as the error may seem, it detracts from the flow of the piece much as a speed bump on a smooth road.