Journal #8

"Tag Your It!" By Justine Brown - T.H.E. Journal

This article discusses the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) within schools. It talks about Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, CA implementing these devices that would automatically track students from the moment the walked onto campus. The system would allow traking throughout the day from taking attendance, restroom usage, lunch to Library book checkout and campus entrance/exit, etc. This system ultimately failed do to privacy concerns by parents, because the system was so extensive in the amount of information that was gathered and utilized. The main scrutiny over this concept is that not only can school employees and teachers look at the information, but because the system relies on radio frequency, individuals who know how to manipulate the frequency inconjunction with a GPS could track the children, thus putting them in extreme danger.

Questions:

1. With a system like this in place, couldn't it be changed to track only certain information such as a childs name and nothing else for attendance purposes only?
I think that by only having a childs name loaded onto the RFID this would allow teachers and school officials to accurately take attendance without any problems. The draw back is still utilizing the radio frequency, but limiting the information stored would be a better alternative than scrapping an entire project in which funding would be extremely high. I just think if you sink alot of money into something, you should give it a shot to be successful rather than not.

2. If RFID is not accepted by parents what about implmenting a card access system in school to help with security and student tracking, similar to colleges?
I think this may be the best option for schools and districts to get parent buy-in on. It would only work however if the students/parents are responsible to bring the access card to school everyday. The schools can then have the information uploaded to a central server that compiles the information and then that would be compared to actual students on hand. Anyway I think that in order to provide security without infringing on indivual privacy rights, this may be the only option that school may have to be successful in tracking student movement in and out of buildings on a campus.