- Jan 7, 2002
- 12,755
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Northern Arizona State will soon track class attendance via an RFID (radio frequency identification) chip in student ID cards. The system, which is similar to one used at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, will use sensors to detect students as they enter classrooms. The data collected will be recorded and shared with professors.
Predictably, students are unhappy and, with equal predictability, have taken their discontent to Facebook via the protest group although some of the more energetic have started petitions against the proposed practice.
University officials say their aim is only to increase student attendance and improve performance though, with enough sensors, they could easily track students' whereabouts on campus at all times. Students counter, correctly, that they are adults and whether they attend class regularly, on time or pass at all is not the universitys business.
The larger issue being overlooked is the growing use of tracking devices in the U.S., and how willing most people are to be tagged and set loose in the wild where their movements and spending habits are monitored, recorded and filed away for someones future use.
Since 2006 U.S. passports have been issued with 64-kilobyte RFID chips that carry the name, date and place of birth, nationality, and gender as well as a digitized photo of the person.
Credit card companies are slowly replacing existing cards with RFID chipped cards that also contain confidential information about the customer, and the states have been under intense pressure from the Federal government to comply with the REAL ID act, which make national ID cards out of drivers licenses.
Privacy advocates point out that RFID technology, despite encryption, still leaves peoples information vulnerable to anyone with a bit of technical know-how and a scanner, and chipping is fast becoming a go-to safety method of choice that has left the general population grumbling.
Whats contradictory about this is that people willingly tag themselves by driving vehicles and carrying cell phones that are GPS enabled. Ive lost track of the number of people whose GPS enabled phones announce their whereabouts continuously on Facebook and Twitter for nearly anyone to see. How many of the indignant Arizona students are just as easy to track?
http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-r...ty-to-monitor-students-with-chipped-id-cards/
Predictably, students are unhappy and, with equal predictability, have taken their discontent to Facebook via the protest group although some of the more energetic have started petitions against the proposed practice.
University officials say their aim is only to increase student attendance and improve performance though, with enough sensors, they could easily track students' whereabouts on campus at all times. Students counter, correctly, that they are adults and whether they attend class regularly, on time or pass at all is not the universitys business.
The larger issue being overlooked is the growing use of tracking devices in the U.S., and how willing most people are to be tagged and set loose in the wild where their movements and spending habits are monitored, recorded and filed away for someones future use.
Since 2006 U.S. passports have been issued with 64-kilobyte RFID chips that carry the name, date and place of birth, nationality, and gender as well as a digitized photo of the person.
Credit card companies are slowly replacing existing cards with RFID chipped cards that also contain confidential information about the customer, and the states have been under intense pressure from the Federal government to comply with the REAL ID act, which make national ID cards out of drivers licenses.
Privacy advocates point out that RFID technology, despite encryption, still leaves peoples information vulnerable to anyone with a bit of technical know-how and a scanner, and chipping is fast becoming a go-to safety method of choice that has left the general population grumbling.
Whats contradictory about this is that people willingly tag themselves by driving vehicles and carrying cell phones that are GPS enabled. Ive lost track of the number of people whose GPS enabled phones announce their whereabouts continuously on Facebook and Twitter for nearly anyone to see. How many of the indignant Arizona students are just as easy to track?
http://www.care2.com/causes/civil-r...ty-to-monitor-students-with-chipped-id-cards/
Nope, not me.
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