Friday, February 11, 2005
Teenager Triangulation
Ok, is SOUNDS like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, but come on. I have no less than 3 badges to get into various buildings and labs. Think of it as future occupational training.
- The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on January 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.
While similar devices are being tested at several schools in Japan so parents can know when their children arrive and leave, Brittan appears to be the first U.S. school district to embrace such a monitoring system.
Civil libertarians hope to keep it that way.
- In addition to the privacy concerns, parents are worried that the information on and inside the badges could wind up in the wrong hands and endanger their children, and that radio frequency technology might carry health risks.
Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like a global-positioning device.