Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips

http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-school-id-hernandez-033/

by stfu • 14 years ago

56 55 14 years ago

dpritchett2• 14 years ago

This seems ripe for a good hack, maybe harvest ID fingerprints via war driving and stationary scanners and then post the creepiest mapping mashups the law allows?

Bonus points if the scanning is pulled off with drones flying in public airspace.

dpritchett2• 14 years ago

The school district's FAQ [1] seems a bit glib regarding the anonymity of the cards:

Q.1 Could someone manufacture a copy of a WGA RFID reader and use it to intercept information transmitted by student RFID tags?

A.1 WGA has approached this as an issue of system architecture. By ensuring that the “smart” ID contains no information of interest to anyone, WGA has simultaneously removed any motive for cloning its reader and removed any problem if someone does clone its reader.

[1] http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/faq

ktizo2• 14 years ago

By ensuring that the “smart” ID contains no information of interest to anyone

Surely that would involve making it not work.

zarify2• 14 years ago

Obvious really. Kids aren't coming to school? Chip them and punish them if they don't carry their card or aren't where they're supposed to be. Much better than thinking about the long term and figuring out, oh I don't know, why they're not coming to school and fixing that.

There was an educator from the US speaking at a conference I was at last week, and it honestly felt like stealing her passport and return tickets so she couldn't go home would be a kind thing to do.

nekojima• 14 years ago

"stealing her passport and return tickets so she couldn't go home would be a kind thing to do."

A kind thing to do for her or for the students?

zarify2• 14 years ago

A kind thing for her :P Her sessions were excellent.

antonID3• 14 years ago

How is this tracking? It's an rfid tag with the serial number on it so that they can scan it to bring up the person in their computer system to do things like pay for lunch, vote in student elections, and scan them when entering a classroom for attendance. I seriously don't understand how this is an evil tracking microchip. Most companies already use these for building access, so I don't see why using it for simple things at school is insane; it isn't a GPS chip, it just gives a serial number when scanned... this isn't some kind of dangerous chip.

jeffool2• 14 years ago

The article explains that someone (a member of Texans for Accountable Government) filed a FOIA request and got the addresses of all the students. From that a little wardriving will give you recognizable RFID tags so you can at least tell if the child is in the home, or in any given location.

Is that unlikely? Yes, very.

You know what I think is more unlikely? Someone actually sneaking into in a case where this ID card would keep them out. I can't imagine a single reason students couldn't just punch a number to do all of those things, and save the school system money that could be better spent on any number of things.

chris_mahan4• 14 years ago

Perhaps the students should exchange cards. let the administration sort them out.

Students are devious. If you punch my ID monday, I'll punch yours Friday. (in a non-creepy way, of course)

antonID3• 14 years ago

Did her FOIA request involve the serial numbers of the IDs? Or just a request for all the students in the school? The article doesn't specify. RT is a hugely biased news source that tries anything to get bad press on the US, so I don't trust it as a reliable source.

WalterBright• 14 years ago

I give it about 3 days before the students figure out they can "attend" class by giving the tag to their friend who is also taking the class.

The teachers will finally catch on when there is only one student in class, with 30 tags in his pocket :-)

jawns• 14 years ago

I used to work in a high school where the students did something very similar. They needed their ID cards to reserve a computer in the library, and they'd have one kid collect multiple ID cards and make reservations for his friends, or they'd borrow each others' ID cards and hope we wouldn't notice.

nickheer• 14 years ago

It's RT. They tend to err on the side of paranoia and conspiracy, so it isn't a surprise that they worded this in the particular way that they did.

ghshephard• 14 years ago

It's important to note - the students aren't being "chipped" - instead, they are required to carry identification cards that have microchips in them.

I guess the ick factor comes down to how you feel about living in a surveillance society, and what you think forcing students to accept this type of continuous monitoring will do to them.

Students, in general, have fewer rights in a school, and are subject to search without due cause, so, from a legal perspective, not much leg to stand on.

I guess I'm kind of nonplussed about all this as I've carried an identification card/chip in every job I've worked at in Silicon Valley since 1996. The benefit has been 24x7 access to the office and all of it's equipments, servers, routers, whenever I wanted to go do work at the cost of the company knowing when I entered the building without tailgating someone (I've never worked at a company that required chipping out).

The RFID "distance" monitoring would be somewhat more annoying (if that's a function of this school system) - I'm not sure I'd be too keen on someone knowing my precise physical location on campus at all times, and being able to get a report on that - so I can see the resistance to that.

chris_mahan4• 14 years ago

The problem is that they are required by law to go to the school, so it's not optional for them. In a job situation, you have the option of not working there.

cracell• 14 years ago

On that same note people shouldn't allow their employees to have abusive practices. Carrying a keycard to get into a building is one thing, having a RFID scanner that logs every time I enter the kitchen or bathroom is another.

goodcanadian• 14 years ago

<quote>Students, in general, have fewer rights in a school, and are subject to search without due cause, so, from a legal perspective, not much leg to stand on.</quote>

And I have always had extreme problems with this, particularly when it comes to things like random locker searches. If we don't allow children their rights in school, we are training them to give up their rights as adults. Cynics might say this is exactly what the goal is.

russelluresti• 14 years ago

It's also important to note that they're not just being asked to carry identification cards, because the students had previous identification cards without the chip that the school is saying aren't valid anymore. The difference between the old card, which doesn't work, and the new card, which does, is the chip. To me, this means that they're being chipped.

There's two problems here from my perspective. One is the invasion of privacy, which is just ridiculous. There's no justifiable reason for this Giving people the ability to track the location of another person at any time is wrong.

Second is that this "solution" is the wrong way to go about solving their problem. Their issue is that people aren't attending schools, and, thus, the school is losing money. If you were approached with a problem of "people aren't going to school" would your solution be "let's put RFID chips on them?" That's nowhere near an effective solution. This idea punishes both children who do attend and children who do not attend. An ideal solution wouldn't need to punish anyone, but raise attendance through positive and supportive means, such as offering incentives to attend school.

kondro• 14 years ago

I really dislike how Americans seem to treat children as chattel.

flyt• 14 years ago

Super simple: put the ID card in a microwave for a few 5-10 second bursts to disable the RFID circuitry. Every time you need to use the card just say "it doesn't work for me", and when they issue you a new card do it over and over. You "don't know" why it happens, but this makes it as much of a hassle for them as it is for you.

rhino42• 14 years ago

Or wrap it in tin foil for a poor-man's farady cage. You could do slightly better with one of those passport RFID shields if that didn't cut it. Whenever they want you to present it, happily do so and then put it back in its cage

jhuckestein• 14 years ago

What, aren't the teachers able to determine who's present anymore? How large are the classes in this school?

All the other potential use-cases such as payment for lunch, logging onto computer systems, identification etc sounds useful. Tracking attendance sounds very misguided though. I didn't go to class a lot and whenever I did show up I caused a ruckus (yea yea, I know... but back then I thought it was hilarious). I don't think anyone's situation would have improved if somebody made me tag in and out of classrooms or globally punished me...

malandrew• 14 years ago

What's even more misguided is that using it for attendance is going to enable skipping class not enforce it. There's nothing preventing Student A from carrying both his ID and Student B's while Student B skips class. Not only will Student B succeed in skipping class, they get get an alibi as well.

bloaf2• 14 years ago

Couldn't they just give the cards to students with truancy problems?

chris_mahan4• 14 years ago

I think they need the cards to identify who those students are.

bloaf2• 14 years ago

But if refusing to wear them is an option with few consequences (or, more specifically, few consequences a delinquent student would care about) then do the ID tags really accomplish that goal? Consider that the alternative is simply having the teachers do a $0 roll call before each class.

Indeed, ID cards seem like they might make identification more difficult, as they would allow unscrupulous students to trade tags and make it seem that their friends were in places that they were not.

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

Russia Today is an unreliable source to start with, and quoting worldNet Daily - famous mainly for conspiracy theories about Obama not being a Us citizen and for having a political opinion column by Chuck Norris - renders the story even less credible. Besides, even if it is all absolutely legit...

Hernandez said in an interview with Salon that subjecting herself to constant monitoring through an RFID chip is like being branded with the “mark of the beast” – a reference to the Bible's apocalyptic Book of Revelations.

...why should I give a hoot about people with such crackpot religious beliefs? We pander enough to this sort of nonsense already, and if the student finds it that objectionable maybe she should go to a private school instead. I am not a fan of the surveillance society, but given the staggeringly high truancy, dropout and incidence of gun crime on American high school campuses, trackable student IDs are low on the list of things to worry about.

shortformblog• 14 years ago

I instantly question hardcore when I see the story is from RT, personally.

jlujan• 14 years ago

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/09/rfid-chip-student-m...

As a Texan, I think it is ridiculous to spend millions on a technology "solution" just to get more funding. Why would you want kids in class that don't want to be there? Money would be better spent on actually educating the kids that do attend than tracking kids that don't.

aik• 14 years ago

Other sources:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/education/article/Students-...

http://news.yahoo.com/san-antonio-school-district-track-stud...

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

is like being branded with the “mark of the beast”

Actually, if I were in Texas, I would absolutely take that approach. There are enough highly-conservative Christians in the state that this approach might garner some support against the evil government wanting to "mark our children".

A little investigation shows the story is real. http://www.aclutx.org/blog/?cat=21

tomjen3• 14 years ago

Argue your privacy and Texas will just laugh at you.

Argue mark of the beast and you have a large portion of the state support you.

MrMember• 14 years ago

>...why should I give a hoot about people with such crackpot religious beliefs? We pander enough to this sort of nonsense already, and if the student finds it that objectionable maybe she should go to a private school instead.

Seriously? People with religious beliefs you don't agree with aren't entitled to privacy? And if they disagree with the policies they should spend tens of thousands of dollars on a private school?

anigbrowl2• 14 years ago

There's a diminished expectation of privacy on a school campus. I might be sympathetic if the student were arguing for a greater degree of privacy, but arguing that the school is trying to brand her with the mark of the beast is bullshit. That kind of irrationality was long held up as an excuse to torture and abuse people who didn't subscribe to it, so I have no sympathy when it's played as a victim card. There are many religious schools and homeschooling options available for people who are determined to follow ultra-orthodox beliefs.

thronemonkey• 14 years ago

Little Brother anyone? I've always told people that book is hyperbolic but good anyway; seems like that might not be the case :/

jrockway• 14 years ago

I guess nobody has told kids about what adults do with their grocery store loyalty cards: randomly trade them with other people so the data becomes less useful.

Also, which RFID technology are they using? The readers look like Octopus card readers. (Which is FeLiCa-based.) I doubt the claim that the cards are "always broadcasting" and that designing a practical remote RFID reader is much more difficult than "parents" imagine. But even the federal government put some privacy provisions into the RFID passports, so you'd think that the same courtesy could be extended to high school students too.

SoftwareMaven2• 14 years ago

"courtesy...extended to high school students"

That would imply that the people providing the cards for the students think of them the same way the government is forced to think about its citizens.

Unfortunately, there are few organizations doing that forcing and the courts have often sided on the side of administrators to be able to treat them as much-less-than-citizens (which is a great way to teach citizenship in our country...).

WiseWeasel• 14 years ago

Trading loyalty cards with an acquaintance, when combined with credit card payment information, yields relationship data. That's just giving them more information.

tomrod3• 14 years ago

I really hate this concept. If the education so poor that students REALLY don't want to be there, is the solution to make school become even more like a prison?

The whole education sphere really needs a large revolution. I'm not sure of the answer, but I bet there is a startup waiting to happen here.

eli_gottlieb3• 14 years ago

No, there is not a startup business waiting to happen and make profits off the provision of a universal public good to people without much money.

tomrod3• 14 years ago

I'm not so sure this is true, although it is the standard thought of public education as a public good.

I seem to remember homeschooling being a rare thing when I was younger, but now it's at 2..9%(0). I heard a story the other day about a service that allows teachers to sell their curriculum (1), so there is definitely a sphere here that's available. I think that, although RT is horribly biased, the premise that _coercing_ children to stay in class isn't a net positive for society in any sense; instead, make education a good that children _want_, and we'll likely see the entire provision system improve.

Forcing consumption of the same good on people is surely going to be net negative for society, even if that good is deemed by society to be important.

--- (0) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_in_the_United_Sta... (1) http://www.kansascity.com/2012/10/11/3862033/teachers-make-m...

TheGateKeeper• 14 years ago

> to stem the rampant truancy devastating the school's funding

So truancy is a part of lack of funding? There's something wrong with that picture. Texas needs to fix that issue before trying to act all fascist on their students.

JCraig• 14 years ago

Since it is so easy to game card-based check-ins, I'm sure the teachers still have to verify attendance. Also, if a student's card isn't working, they have to be able to count that student as in attendance. I wonder how much time this actually saves.

There has been quite a bit of push-back to the use of RFID specifically. My college used magstripe cards. They're not quite as robust, but they do need physical contact to read the information. It seems like a fair trade-off considering that these are a) kids and b) they are legally required to be at school (and by extension, school policies carry some force of law).

ktizo2• 14 years ago

Also, there is a serious issue with the security of radio tags in general as they are so susceptible to cloning and spoofing - http://cq.cx/proxmark3.pl

sxp• 14 years ago

This sounds like the root cause of the protests. Students and parents aren't complaining about the idea of just having to carry an ID card like a license. They are complaining about the RFID aspect of the card. They just have some superstitious fear of technology. There was a similar panic by crackpots when barcodes came out because barcodes were also thought to be the "Mark of the Beast"

“Using this information along with an RFID reader means a predator could use this information to determine if the student is at home and then track them wherever they go. These chips are always broadcasting so anyone with a reader can track them anywhere,”

Anyone want to bet those same students have Google Latitude, Twitter+geolocation, or some similar app on their smartphones?

iscis• 14 years ago

All of the Orwellian fear of big data in this thread needs to go away. I can't wait for the day when I don't have to watch 50 shitty ads for stuff I don't need whenever I watch a sporting event or something; present me with ads as I desire the product.

Shitty ads- the ultimate market failure

Texas schools punish students who refuse to be tracked with microchips

Related Stories