Students will be tracked via chips in IDs

[cali]

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]

1. They should add turnstiles with automated face recognition at the entrances

Only people who belong in a school building should be permitted entry for security purposes.

[ananda]

5. Would this be viable..

.. for health and emergency reasons so many people might need access: parents, relatives, emt's, etc.

[FarCenter]

10. Visitors with a good reason for entry would be admitted by a guard at the visitor's entrance

Commercial buildings handle this all the time.

[Posteritatis]

18. For the low, low cost of hundreds of millions of dollars

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]

26. The schools here manage the same thing by putting the office next to the entrance

and installing a big window.

If somebody nobody recognizes walks in, somebody walks over and greets them.

edited for freeper spelling

[MadHound]

2. Get 'em used to authoritarianism while they're young

My guess is that several of these kids will figure out a way around RFID chips. It isn't that hard to do.

[cali]

3. I hope so. this is scary to me.

[treestar]

4. Mixed feelings here

Soon technology will allow the government to know where we all are. OTOH, kids may never be kidnapped or murdered again.

[MadHound]

6. Government can already track you via your cellphone

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]

7. Also EZ pass tolls, at least here in the Northeast

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]

11. False security

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]

12. Very true

Students of every generation find ways to outwit the oldies, no matter what the technology.

[suffragette]

16. That they will. Suggested a different approach below in response to another poster

I think there are much better directions, but they need a shift to look at process through a larger priorities lens.

[FarCenter]

14. That's why multifactor identification, like an additional face recognition system, is needed

Otherwise an attacker can simply kill a kid, take the card, and enter the school.

[suffragette]

15. Or maybe not ratcheting up the rush to "Minority Reports" style invasive measures

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]

19. What makes you think this would possibly prevent abductions? (nt)

[treestar]

20. Extreme form of Amber Alert

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]

27. Yeah, that wouldn't work with chipped cards.

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]

8. Big Brother must keep track of all his charges.

Though why couldn't the kid just take the student ID out of his/her pocket when they get home?

[leftyohiolib]

9. couldnt a couple of seconds in the microwave kill the rfid

[RC]

13. Then there goes lunch.

S/he will be counted as absent. Or AWOL during some mandatory school activity.

[Odin2005]

17. That is disturbing.

[AverageJoe90]

21. OMG, teh Antichrist is cumming!!!1!!one!!1!one!!!1!!

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]

22. driver's licenses will be next

then they can follow all of us
and then they can link it to drones to watch us

[dana_b]

23. "where's your i.d. card?"

"I forgot it today." I suspect there will be a rash of "forgetfulness".

[octothorpe]

25. Yeap... This is mostly a waste of money.

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]

24. This is only a step beyond what I've experienced for ten years

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]

28. 20 seconds in the microwave...

Poof no RFID.