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 value to that?” The question is protecting our kids against what?
In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, Ekahau, a company that supplies active RFID tags to the medical industry to track hospital equipment, has now supplied a school with active RFID tags that enables teachers to communicate with the local police department as soon as a terror threat happens, medical emergency or simply “to get help with a student that may be unruly“. Ekahau have already supplied this RFID to staff and students to a school in Germany after a shooting incident.
At the moment only the teachers are wearing the wifi enabled RFID tags; how long will it be until the children will be wearing them too and normalized into using privacy intrusive technology for ‘safety’? The intent behind this use of RFID is admirable but with this application of RFID, that gives the police a real time eye into the school, it has the potential to lull in a false sense of security, when practically any person deciding to wield a firearm anywhere cannot be predicted or stopped if they are determined to cause harm.
Terrorism should not be used as an excuse to “dollar value” our rights to privacy. These shootings are terrible and the perpetrators, whoever they are, should be brought to justice. Thankfully the chances of dying from a bee sting are greater than that of dying from an act of terrorism.
Let’s hope that this school never has to use this RFID for the extremely slim chance that a random shooter may visit them, though I suspect the technology will be put to good use for other reasons – not terrorism.
“The badge has only been in use for two weeks and some say they can’t imagine not having it.“
Against RFID in schools 