In a school full of rowdy children running around, how do teachers take attendance efficiently? Keep bathroom bullies in check?
This past June, Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, California, decided to distribute ID badges to each of its students. The school's newsletter asked parents to make sure students wore the badges at all times. What the school didn't tell the parents was that the ID badges contained radio frequency identification chips (RFID) - usually used to track cattle or inventory in a warehouse. The chips would make taking attendance a task of the past since a sensor would log automatically which radio frequencies (i.e. which students) were on school grounds. The chips could track various students' movements around the school, making it easy for administrators to track when
students were loitering in bathrooms harassing others or getting into no good.
As soon as parents found out that the badges contained RFID's, the small town of Sutter was enraged at the invasion of privacy and the potential risks (Are there health hazards? Can child molesters track students with RFID readers?) and the principal of the school was forced to end the experiment.
However, when the company in charge of creating the RFID's at Brittan
Elementary School took the technology to the American Association of School Administrator's conference, more than 100 school districts indicated interest.
Where do we draw the line between technology as a means to improve our lives and technology as an invasion of our lives? What are the criteria we should use to determine that line?
Perhaps RFID's aren't as bad as the town of Sutter presumed. Maybe the real issue was that parents were never notified of the technology that would be installed in the innocuous-looking badges. If the community had been given the proper notice and a meaningful chance to voice their opinions and participate in establishing the infrastructure for the ID's, perhaps a consensus could have been reached.
Then again, maybe there's just a point where we should draw the line and say no, our kids are not cattle, and we refuse to tag them - no matter what.