Against RFID in schools
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Green light to RFID track Oregon’s school children?
USA - Oregon Senate passed a bill on 11th June 2013 seemingly giving schools the right to impose RFID tracking on it’s students. However HB2386 appears to have started life back in January 2013 with exactly the opposite intent, reading that: HB2386 “Prohibits school district from requiring student to wear, carry or use any item with radio … Continue reading
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A school district in Northern California is to start tracking children on and off schools buses via RFID and GPS technology. The system is free to the district, taxpayers and parents with local businesses sponsoring the messages sent to parents phones to tell them their child is safe at school. The company East Coast Diversified Corporation … Continue reading
In the age of perceived terrorism that we live in, it seems that technology offers our children safety in a school environment. Skyview High School‘s Mandy Petty, a school counselor, commented, “Look at what we spend to protect our banks, our cars, our homes. When do we start protecting our kids and what is the dollar … Continue reading
Lucky, lucky cows. They too can bathe in the same 6.35GHz frequencies as students have been recently at West Cheshire College, a 14-19 college in the UK. But the ultra wideband (UWB) RFID used by the cows – supplied by Zebra Technologies, the same company that supplied the college – has more refined specifications than the UWB RFID … Continue reading
You’d have though some simple questions on cost and funding may have been easy to answer, especially when you are investing in a state of the art, military standard, ultra wideband RFID tagging system for tracking children in real time? It would seem not. West Cheshire College, according to the RFID Journal, started tracking … Continue reading
StudentConnect are providing RFID and GPS in school buses in the Gordon County School District, Georgia, USA to monitor students travel movements. Apparently Andrej Jeremic, Director of Marketing and Business Development at East Coast Diversified the company that owns StudentConnect, stated that their system using RFID and GPS, “is not a tracking device” ”…it is a notification system”. Yes Andrej, … Continue reading
433MHz is the most used frequency on earth and is also the radio frequency used in John Jay High School, Texas, USA to track students on their premises. The RFID tags worn emit a pulsed constant frequency and cannot be turned off by the students so effectively broadcast the student/tags whereabouts 24-7. The tag works as … Continue reading
There is no law against tracking people in the UK however in order to do so the person who is being tracked must give their consent for the tracking to be legal. In the UK Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 1988 (DPA) states that “Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully” . One aspect of … Continue reading
At the Texas House of Representatives House Bill 101 was heard yesterday, 19th March 2013. The audio/video can be found here 2 hours 45 minute in. From My San Antonio - Andrea Hernandez, one of the students that refused to carry the tracking RFID and was subsequently expelled from John Jay High School, “ told legislators Tuesday … Continue reading
USA, Texas – Over on the We Are Change Texas YouTube Channel is the public discussion from last Monday’s RFID Forum, run by Texans for Accountable Government with RFID privacy expert and activist Dr Katherine Albrecht speaking about the RFID Student Locator Pilot Programme run by the Northside Independent School District in two schools John Jay … Continue reading
USA – Missouri Education Watchdog reported that Senator Ed Emery filed “a bill in Missouri that would not allow such practices as RFID tracking of students or Polar Go Fit bracelets for tracking information.” The Bill SB239 ‘Prohibits school districts from requiring a student to use an identification device that uses radio frequency identification technology to transmit … Continue reading
West Cheshire College, UK, have stopped tracking their students with active RFID tags since using the technology from 2010. On the 26th of February a complaint was made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) concerning the college’s refusal to answer a Freedom of Information request about consent and civil liberties regarding using active RFID tags to trace students movements around West Cheshire College campuses at Handbridge and Ellesmere … Continue reading
Active RFID “…not used for tracking of individual students.” which was West Cheshire College’s reply to a Freedom Of Information Request in December 2012. (Really?) This is how West Cheshire College *don’t track* individual students (see page 20) - from their employee Kevin Francis’s presentation when he visited Disneyland, Florida, in April 2012 to lecture the RFID industry on the Real … Continue reading
On Monday 25th February Texans for Accountable Government (TAG) are having a “Community Forum: RFID Tracking of Students in Government Schools“. It is good that open debate is happening. That it has been generated by the community is completely commendable. Shame on the Northside Independent School District (NISD) for not instigating an open discussion before RFID location tagging children and … Continue reading
West Cheshire College, UK, have active RFID chips in students lanyards for a registration and building management Real Time Location System that enables the college to pinpoint the students precise position on the premises. This location system enables the college to search for students and staff “in groups, such as peer groups.” It is unclear whether students are tracked to personally … Continue reading
A college in the UK, West Cheshire College has a new industry standard Ultra Wideband RFID Real Time Location System used to monitor students in the college. The RFID tracking scheme is proving such a success that Kevin Francis, West Cheshire College’s Building Services Area manager, travelled to Florida in April 2012 to speak about the Return Of Investment … Continue reading
A video by We Are Change (WAC) Texas Hill Country protesting about John Jay High School’s use of RFID real-time tracking students and expulsion of Andrea Hernandez. Yet another defiant move by the school to quash dissention about the RFID scheme saw another student suspended for 3 days for attempting to publish an article about John Jay High School’s … Continue reading
Northside Independent School District’s expulsion of student, Andrea Hernandez, this month has demonstrated how RFID application might save school dollars but clearly does not work in the fact that it has affected one students education. Has it really been worth the saving in money the schools district claims will happen in the light of the fact John … Continue reading
A recent Federal Court ruling sided with a Texan school, John Jay High School, Northside Independent School District, in that it was acceptable to discriminate – to the point of expulsion – a student, Andrea Hernadez, for refusing comply with the RFID programme the schools runs. This image to the right is a letter Andrea … Continue reading
After four recent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to West Cheshire College about their RFID real time location system (RTLS) the college answered the first FOI request, though some detail was lacking, and replied to the second Freedom of Information request informing that there would be no answer from them as there “has not been a reasonable interval since your initial … Continue reading
In Texas a 15-year-old student, Andrea Hernandez, refused to wear a trackable RFID tag and then refused to wear a pretend RFID tag that Northside Independent School District offered her. The school district then insisted Hernandez wear this pretend tag or face suspension. (You almost couldn’t make it up). So Andrea took the school district to court. However a federal judge’s 25 … Continue reading
The recently approved standard in February 2012 from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) IEEE 802.15.4f enabled Zebra Technologies to develop RFID tags, sold to West Cheshire College for tracking its students. As reported in the RFID Journal, Zebra “In anticipation of that development [IEEE 802.15f], Zebra Technologies has announced a new version of … Continue reading
In West Cheshire College, Cheshire UK, “Students [are] made to carry ‘Orwellian’ locater tags – College staff and students have been issued with compulsory electronic badges that are capable of tracking their movements, leading to criticism of “Orwellian” tactics.” How exactly does an establishment implement compulsory RFID tagging and still give the persons being tagged an option … Continue reading
Student Wins Tracking ID Case reports Frontpagemag.com Sanity, thankfully, has prevailed in the case of Andrea Hernandez who has been incredibly brave standing up to the school’s absolute instance that she wears RFID chip or pretends to and that she stops protesting or she gets expelled. This plucky teenager said no! This from the Rutherford Institute who took … Continue reading
According to an article from April 2012 in RFID Journal, West Cheshire College are RFID tracking 5,500 full-time students and have been doing so since 2010. After the opening of its new campus at Ellesmere Port, Liverpool, the college “has successfully implemented Zebra’s real time location tracking solution with the ability to track and increase the visibility … Continue reading
West Cheshire College, England, UK, uses RFID to track up to 20,000 students? – and not a mention on their website? - the US company who has sold them the technology uses our UK school to promote their RFID technology. With the school’s Building Services Manager travelling all the way to Orlando, Florida to promote/advertise the system: “The college … Continue reading
Well it has happened – pure discrimination against a human not choosing not to be tagged with RFID, in this - possibly first case of RFID discrimination – a child. USA you should be proud to have reached the heady heights of the big brother state that your rivals China, North Korea, Russia have not even … Continue reading
From the Spychips website a ‘Position Paper on the use of RFID in Schools’ issued by Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN) Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) Privacy Rights Clearinghouse “Children should never be used as test subjects for technology, no matter what their socio-economic status.” “[RFID]…could dissuade individuals from exercising their rights to … Continue reading
In March 2012 students in northeastern Brazil, Vitoria da Conquista, now wear RFID locator chips embedded in their T-shirts the Huffington Post reports. The RFID chip is designed to withstand washing and ironing and it has a ”security system that makes tampering virtually impossible.” Phew, thank goodness for that! “Twenty thousand students in 25 of Vitoria da Conquista’s … Continue reading
