Ten schoolchildren in the United
Kingdom are being tracked by
RFID
chips
in their school uniforms as part of a pilot program.
If the program proves successful as a way to hasten
registration, simplify data entry for the school's behavioral reporting
system, and ensure attendance, Trevor Darnborough, whose company,
Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes
other schools will be interested, according to the Doncaster
Free Press.
The chipped children are enrolled at Hungerhill School
in Edenthorpe, England, a secondary school for ages 11 to 16.
David Clouter, a parent and founder of Leave Them Kids Alone, a
children's advocacy group, condemned the plan. "With pupils being
fingerprinted and now this it seems we are treating children in a way
that we have traditionally treated criminals," he told the Doncaster
Free Press.
"The system is not intrusive to the pupil in the
slightest," Hungerhill teacher Graham Wakeling told the Doncaster
Free Press. He also said that all the patents of the children in
the trial supported the tracking effort.
Video surveillance is already commonplace in the United
Kingdom, and a growing number of schoolchildren are fingerprinted for
administrative and security reasons. Since 2001, nearly 6,000 pupils
have been fingerprinted in the United Kingdom, the Daily
Mail reported earlier this month, with 20 new schools embracing
the practice every week.
In a blog
post about the report, security expert Bruce Schneier quipped, "So
now it's easy to cut class; just ask someone to carry your shirt around
the building while you're elsewhere."
