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 request”
Erm… there is no exemption in the Freedom of Information Act 2000 that mentions time period between FOI requests. Maybe West Cheshire College should let a member of staff who is knowledgable about their legal obligation under the Freedom of Information Act deal with FOI requests – not their Press Office who wrote the refusal to reply.
Coincidentally within a 24 hour period of West Cheshire College’s refusal to answer FOI requests, the article in the RFID Journal ‘West Cheshire College Tracks Whereabouts of Students, Staff,’ that details the RFID system the college uses was pulled from the internet. (A pdf of the article can be found here)
This was one of only two source articles which detail West Cheshire College’s RFID system. The other article is on the suppliers website, Zebra Technologies.
Maybe its a wild coincidence but it seems that there is clamp down of what exactly is going on at West Cheshire College.
Against RFID in schools 