By Jo Best, 10 February 2005 17:30
NEWS A school in California has declared that chipping its young pupils is mandatory - and parents are furious about it.
Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, California, introduced a scheme last month to use RFID to identify its pupils. The RFID chips are worn around the neck in the form of ID badges and can be used to monitor where the children are on school grounds, and carry the child's name, photo, grade and unique school ID number.
A recent letter sent home to parents from the school said: "It is important the badge be worn at all times during school hours. This additional step will help keep your child safe while at school."
The letter concludes: "Students who lose or destroy their badges will be accountable for the cost of replacing them."
According to the school's weekly bulletin, the system allowed the staff to find when a non-student was in the school, due to the interloper's lack of badge. The bulletin also says the RFID tags could be used to help identify any missing children in the event of an emergency.
The newsletter adds: "Questions have arisen regarding the safety of the materials used in the badges. The chip that is used to activate the attendance of a child entering a classroom does not have any radioactive elements."
Parents aren't just complaining about the chips on health grounds, they're complaining about the civil liberties implications too.
Michael Cantrall, parent of one of the children at Brittan Elementary, said: "Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always going to be watching you?", according to a report in the Associated Press.
Some parents have complained to the school authorities about the use of the tags and civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have taken up the cause.
Principal Earnie Graham told the AP that he hopes to add a barcode to the RFID tag to allow the children to pay for meals at school and take out library books. He said that while the whole school must wear the badges, only the seventh and eighth graders are being tracked.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I think it is really wrong to be doing what these people are doing and everybody have different opanians right
2. Denis Barrett
In regards to the following snipet:
"Michael Cantrall, parent of one of the children at Brittan Elementary, said: "Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always going to be watching you?", according to a report in the Associated Press."
Am I to understand that this person would not hold the school accountable should his child end up missing? Or perhaps the time tested truant officers and security gaurds are all this person feels is needed to keep kids in line? Or is it the teachers continuing efforts to spend time teaching instead of babysitting where the problem is? I am not quite sure how civil liberties are being affected by tracking our children while they are at school.
Anyone heard of Chuck E. Cheese? Discovery Zone? Both places set up for kids to have fun...both resuire some sort of ID tag system so that your child does not leave with someone else. Why should I not want my child tracked? Is my child doing something wrong that they may not want to be monitored for...but I sure want to know. Please, if my child is skipping class, get them back on track.
Just my two cents perhaps...
3. George Orwell
Welcome to 1984!
I.D. tags are doubleplus good!
War is peace.
Slavery is freedom.
Socializing children to accept a police state is a very ill-conceived idea...
4. Isaac Underhill
RFID tags on kids are good, specially when you have so many running around on school grounds. (If the school has over 200 students) What parent doesn’t want to know via e-mail or a call to their cell phone that their child never showed up to school? (I’d rather know in the morning, rather then looking for them after school to find that they skipped, or worse)
5. Malcolm Ripley
I would guess (given the sue them for breathing culture in the US) that should a child go missing when at school the parents would hold the school responsible. Which may seem reasonable at first thought, however, how on earth does a handful of staff keep tabs on all the pupils in a school especially the older ones ? Given the reality of the situation parents have to accept that the responsibility for their childrens whereabouts cannot lie with the school unless the school has a method of locating every child all the time. I know of only two systems : tagging and confinement.
So parents have 3 choices:
1. tag the child and the school is 100% responsible for their whereabouts.
2. Confine the children to locked rooms, school gates etc.
3. Accept the risk that children will not be where they are supposed to be and its not the schools fault.
6. anonymous
This is another manifestation of "the politics of fear" and irrational evaluation of risk. I entirely agree with the parents who feel that the starting point is to teach trust.
This type of thing inches us imperceptibly closer to a society that will monitor and track every tiny action in the interests of avoiding infinitessimal risk. And the next step will, inevitably, be automated sanctions against those who "deviate" with no room for debate or reasoning. The next step is that "deviate" is defined by those who do not share our opinions or beliefs, but we are still "deviating".
That IS 1984 and those who don't believe it could happen are naive. The universe is an unfair, risk ridden place. Most people are decent, honest, well intentioned and can be trusted, but, as they say "shit happenss". Best to grow up understanding this and accepting personal responsibilty rather than handing it to automated and unreasoning technology and those who run and enforce it.
7. anonymous
100% Support for this initiative, if we can improve saftey and reduce truancy in schools I would support it 100% The pupils are also being taught responsibility for their action, in being in school in the first place. Forget all the civil liberties rubbish, if you're not where you're supposed to be why shouldn't the school know?
8. anonymous
Your report states that the RFIDs can be used to identify "where the children are on school grounds" ; but other articles make it clear that the RFID detectors are installed at the classroom doors and only feed back attendance data to the school central computer when pupil's pass through. Also , there has been one occasion when an interloper has been detected - and that was because they didn't have a badge, not because it was an RFID. Whether you agree with the test or not from pure freedom terms, your reporting of the test seems to be subtly unbalanced.
9. Get a Clue
Lazy. Thats what we will become.
What happens when your kid decides to leave his or her ID tag in their friends bag and then walk off the school grounds?
And the teacher that can't be bothered to check if everybody is present by looking round the room (containing 1 kid and a satchel full of RFIDs) instead of a screen that says "yeah everybody is present"
10. PAUL BLISS
surely the good outweighs the bad points in this aspect.
RFID tags in different formats are here to stay and Whether we like it or not we have to get used to them.
they are already in our cars and in high value goods.
the next stage is the worrying one when instead of scanners in doors etc the can track rfid tags by satellite! - and its not science fiction but costs that are stopping it.
11. Jon Catt
it's a great idea, and a long time coming, I sincerely hope that the UK government enforces the same system. I note (as usual) that the voices of 'concern' are anonymous, that's because they're the type who are afraid of being caught out by these thinga, because they DO have something to hide that they can't even bring themselves to state their real names...
Remember, this isn't GPS, it simply notes that a tag has passed through an entry/exit point, like leaving a clothing shop with security tag still on the garment, same thing, and if your child leaves the school grounds during class times with out permission (say the teacher swipes the tag so the child can attend the dentist) then staff can be alerted to this.
In this day and age it's ok to be a little paranoid!
12. Barry L. Barney
How long before chips are inserted immediately an infant is born - I'm taking bets now that it'll be within ten years!!
13. Mark SPLINTER
Isaac Underhill! My parents knew I was in school because of old technologies called discipline, respect and a desire to learn new things. If i did not attend, my parents would have been telephoned after I didn't say "yes sir" in registration. Now, if i put my RFID tag in someone else's pocket and go off to the shops who would know?
I don't understand why parents and schools are so keen to treat kids like poultry or military equipment without a second thought.
An RFID tag ensures attendance of an RFID tag, not a child's respect, or discipline or a desire to learn new things. An RFID tag does NOT show your love for your child, it shows you are such a poor parent you can't trust your own children, or their school is so boring they don't want to go voluntarily. Shame on anyone who thinks this technology solves our problems.
14. Michael Organe
This looks like fun for the kids. They will swap IDs and learn how to scramble them or even re-programme them!
Have they thought of inserting plates in the top of their heads yet?
15. C Bailey
While I can understand the concern of parents wanting to track their young children to prevent them wandering off with a stranger, I feel that using RFIDs is only going to cause trouble further down the line as these children grow older.
We all know that a child who feels repressed or controlled will eventually rebel against those trying to control them. It is human nature, and as they get older they will be more likely to "go off the rails".
And secondly.... why are we trying to control and track the masses due to the problems caused by a sick minority (ie. paedophiles etc.)? Surely it is the minority that we should be trying to track and control!
16. anonymous
Earnie Graham need not add a barcode to the RFID tag to allow the children to pay for meals etc. Systems such as at caterman.org read the RFID tags directly.
17. Abbie Kendall
Asinine plan. And, since when do schools get to dictate to parents? Oh, that's right...most parents like to be told what to do when it means they can spend less time rearing their kids and spend more time on themselves.
18. Mark Omori
If a school was to tag students, it should there fore be acceptable that the staff be tagged an monitored by the parents, we as parents must know that these people of trust are good law abiding citizens, not only must they be tagged but they must be monitored in everyway, their phone's tapped, their computers spied on, come on these teachers could be looking at porn, gay, having an affair, dope smokers! or just being normal people ? but come on you guy's we've got the technology we got to use it
19. Peter Stearn
Is this school or prison? Only in America I pray. The people who accept introduce these ideas are misguided fools.
20. anonymous
So this is how 1984 starts.
First our emails and phone lines are tapped (done), and next children are tagged (done?).
School teaches children how to behave in an environment which is not completely able to enforce its rules; should this education disappear I fear these children will completely change once they leave such a sheltered environment.
21. Nancy
I agree with Mark SPLINTER
Look I like computers and the gadgets that come with it but I think using RFID tracking device on a child is going to far. And the fact that you and I can just put that RFID tag or ID in someone elses pocket and go another way is the very reason they will in stead of a card maybe instist on implanting a Verichip under the skin. (verichip - Digital Angel?) There are people doing that right now!
There is no way of telling of where this will stop if no one cares to do anything about it.
22. Rand. McConnell
I agree. Also, all elected officials will wear them with a mini-cam, 24 hours a day. We can make them available to all adults as well.
23. anonymous
Sounds like "house arrest" to me! We should be more worried about illegal aliens and people with temporary Visas. We are loudly proclaiming that we:
1.Don't trust our children
2.Don't believe in the ways we taught them.
3.Don't trust our school systems when the children are in their care.
4.Want to "Set them and forget them" when they leave for school.
Lunch cards can be barcoded just as easily - loose the card and parents get billed for the lunches each quarter.
Oh yes, are the school personel going to be "tagged also"?
24. Nathan Okun
The RFID's are on chains around the necks of students? Students need only give their ID to somebody else at school and who will ever know they are gone unless somebody realizes that the other student has two ID's on him (one showing and one in his pocket). There seem to be other methods of spoofing the system. If a kid wants to leave, this system will NOT work and will actually make it more difficult to find out if somebody actually was not there (after all, his ID said he was and it never lies, does it?).
25. David Bergmire-Sweat
I am one of the thousands of American parents who wrote e-mails to both the company and to the school system in California denouncing the RFID tag experiment. My issue is that I am completely opposed to the use of RFID tags in public government situations: driver's licenses, passports, credit cards, national ID systems, or implants. I belive it is extremely dangerous for any group of citizens to give any government on earth the power to track our movements, our location, etc. at all times. The only way to stop this from inevitably occurring is to oppose each small movement by any government body that heads in that direction. If you don't believe we all have reason to fear, remember Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, and Mussolini's Italy. These were cultured, educated societies that developed police states of unbelievable brutality. Just think what could have happened if those madmen had access to this type of technology. Those of us who are concerned, have every right to be.
26. anonymous
"The RFID's are on chains around the necks of students" ...so any student could force another student to hand over their tag!
I think this is quite likely to happen in schools and would obviously render the tag useless!
27. Rodric Martin
Headmasters have been jailed for child abuse, RFID can't replace diligence. Tech is false security! If someone cared where a child was then they would be there with them. We don't want complacent teachers or children. Self-sufficiency please!
28. anonymous
People spend money to have chips put in their pets' ear for safety & security, so why wouldn't you put one around your child's neck?
29. anonymous
Brilliant Idea,
We need to bring back discipline in schools; we have seen the damage of the soft approach. We need to show kids that they have to follow rules. If this is the best way to do it then great. You are not taking away human rights by enforcing discipline. If this is the case, we should just open all prison doors. Because kids are learning from a very young age that they do not have too follow rules if they do not want too.
I want to see this option every where, before we loose our kids.
30. R Dutton
Improve learning by gaining 5-10 minutes each class should be the issue. We already take attendance manually, why not use technology to do it automatically to allow teachers to start teaching immediately? Why are some liberals so fearful that we want to know what students are in classroom? Is their agenda to keep learning subjective and not objective? Claim of Orwelling control is a smokescreen designed to disguise a "do anything" culture. Let's get schools back to teaching and less about increasing social time for students.