RFID tracking in Calif. school

[Il_Mostro]

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The fear that the school will know if a student spends several hours in the loo each day raises the question for me --- shouldn't we want the school to know if a student is spending several hours in the loo each day?

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I see this as an ends-means type of question. And I don't think the end (knowing that the student spends a lot of time in the loo, or whatever) justifies the means (the intrusion of said students personal integrity, not to mention every other students integrity) to find it out. This is quite obviously my personal belif, not some sort of universal truth.

[Il_Mostro]

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I don't mind slippery slope arguments if they follow a logical slope.

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One thing I'm worried about in this type of question is the accustomisation of being surveilled systems like this can create, making it easier to introduce them in other places as well.

[Utah]

"I don't mind slippery slope arguments if they follow a logical slope."

Okay. What about two of the biggies: gun control and abortion. There is a clear logical slippery slope argument in both cases. Does that mean for abortion that we cant outlaw partial birth abortions? does that mean for gun control we cant have tighter registration requirements or require trigger locks?

[Il_Mostro]

Yes I know. I just don't know how to express myself in another fashion [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

This specific case can be made fairly uncontroversial by not logging anything, not saving any information other than attendence at classes and such. But this inevitably opens up the door to other uses. And since it's very difficult to make sure it's used in a "safe", "good" way, I'd say, don't use it at all.

[HDPM]

"Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored, and someone is always going to be watching you?"



A main point of public school is to teach kids they cannot trust themselves but can only trust government or a collective. So I think RFID tracking fits neatly into what public education was designed to do.

I don't have kids yet, but I really don't know what I will do when it comes time for school. Public schools are so dangerous in terms of what they force on kids' development, but you also want kids who can function in our nutty society. School does teach them how to cope w/ society some. Private schools are somewhat better, but unfortunately the selection of them where I live is poor. Homeschooling alone has all kinds of problems. Feh.

[adios]

I see a lot more upside to this than downside. What "privacy rights" that children have are being trampled on by this?

[elwoodblues]

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What "privacy rights" that children have are being trampled on by this?

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That's what I'm still trying to figure out. I don't believe you have a privacy right to be "invisible" in a school. It's not like the devices can record conversations or take video or something along those lines. I think that would be seriously offensive, but something akin to a GPS built into an ID is harmless to me (until someone convinces me otherwise.)

[MMMMMM]

I find it disturbing on three fronts:

1) Parents' prior permission or agreement not sought

2) If I were a kid I would hate it

3) Perhaps most importantly, I think the whole human/tracking via GPS/implantable microchips/RFID has enormous potential for abuse. I don't like seeing any developments along such lines implemented, for that reason.

Such a device if implemented nationwide or worldwide could make it possible for an Orwellian sort of police state to have much greater control than even the secret police did under Stalin. This is the forefront of technology for total control of the human species. Granted technological development can't really be stopped but that doesn't mean we have to implement it either.

In Soviet Russia, you had to get permission from the authorities to travel from state to state within the country, carrying your national ID card at all times. With this technology, the day could conceivably come when you have to get permission to drive across town (perhaps a computer's 'OK' for mere jaunts like that). And if genocide or slavery were ever to be a major threat in the future, such devices would help make it almost trivial to implement.

You could be controlled by such a tag or chip in ways we don't even imagine yet. Your car wouldn't start without a 'clear to start car' code from the chip, and the chip must be 'clear' with the central database. The nanotech repair molecules circulating through your bloodstream and helping to keep you healthy could be, at the flick of a bit, switched to 'off' or even to harm you instead.

Don't think it could happen? It could. Give humans power and perhaps 90% of them will find a way to abuse it. And such technologies just make the potential for abuse much greater.
The existence of technologies is one thing, but a system for implementing such technologes which has the potential for abuse is another.

All this probably sounds far-fetched but it could be a real possibility within decades.

Therefore I cringe at the thought of any steps in this direction actually being implemented.

One last note: just because something isn't proven harmful does not mean it is proven safe--and what seems safe now may be abused in the future. And the implementation of such technologies has the most shuddering potentials for future abuse that I can conceive.

[andyfox]

I agree that parents should have been advised. Not sure if their permission should have been sought out, but certainly they should have been notified.

The fact that the kids might hate it is, to me, irrelevant. They might hate taking history tests too, but too bad.

On the potential for abuse, it is certainly present. But there need not be a slippery slope. We can use RFID for some things but not for others. RFID is coming. Within the next ten years, bar codes will disappar from retail stores as they switch over to RFID. That doesn't mean the government will be Big Brother. It just means retail stores will be switching from bar codes to RFID.

We're talking about keeping track of the kids' whereabouts on campus. This is a positive at public schools.

Interesting line-up of 2+2 people for and against on this issue.

[elwoodblues]

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Interesting line-up of 2+2 people for and against on this issue

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Totally agree.