A school district in San Antonio, TX, has moved from using standard plastic ID cards to cards with RFID chips in them, supposedly to better track attendance. Needless to say, some kids are rebelling, mostly on religious grounds, but a few on the grounds of it being unconstitutional (thank God for that).
The school is hitting back: kids aren't allowed to do a lot of things that they were told they'd be able to with their old ID cards. Things like voting for homecoming royalty. The article doesn't say it, but I'd suspect that they're also probably not allowed to check material out of the library.
I don't think this is a justifiable use of this technology. It puts personal identification information out there for anyone to snag using the Freedom of Information Act (*cough*rapists*cough*). It permits realtime tracking of wherever the ID happens to be--a violation of our God-given, Constitutionally guaranteed protected rights--despite what the district claims about how it stops tracking these things at the edge of campus. And, if a student objects, they're threatened with exupulsion or transfer, and not allowed to do things that high school kids nation wide take for granted.
Of course, the district is shocked that anyone is protesting. According to the district spokesperson, Pascual Gonzales,“The kids are used to being monitored.” Why should they protest one more level to the creepy surveilance?
Q: What does your average federal government bureaucrat think of the San Antonio school district's RFID-chipped ID cards for their students?
A: It's a good start to get people used to the government tracking their every move.
Or, even if we're not talking rapists, I could see a non-custodial parent who has (with good reason) been denied visitation wanting to find out where their kid is. And I can see those data being subpoenaed in divorce fights. And and and.
ReplyDeleteAnd for that matter, if a kid wants to skip class, aren't there already ways of finding that out? And already penalties the kid faces? This is like calling for strict new gun laws when the ones on the books aren't being enforced properly.
I wonder how the teachers and principals would react if they were told they were going to be RFIDed next?
Ha, I'd love to see that happen. I'd love to see what happens if a parent with a confrontational spouse threatens to sue the school for breach of their child's safety, too.
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