# RFID badges for schoolchildren: Your opinion? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 10, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346 "2012-10-10T19:28:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/1 "2012-10-10T19:28:52Z")
This is not a new concept, but there seems to be a lot of ‘Hell no!’ about this. My question is: why? How is tracking whether a kid is in the hallway, out the door, in the toilet, or at school at ALL that day any different than hall monitors, teachers taking attendance, or requiring a hall pass/permission to leave the room? > **[Texas school uses RFID badges to track student locations](https://www.pcworld.com/article/461562/texas-school-uses-rfid-badges-to-track-student-locations.html)** > > Two San Antonio, Texas schools are requiring students to wear badges with an embedded RFID chip in order to track their locations. Some students complain about invasion of privacy and chilling their right to assemble, but the school says it has an... ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/2 "2012-10-10T19:33:07Z")
We have better things to spend money on, like books and in-class assistants, that will actually improve a child’s educational outcome rather than monitor their bathroom habits and treat them like inmates. The only people pressing for this kind of crap are the OEMs and distributors who just love creaming money from schools by overselling and signing schools up to ridiculously over-priced contracts. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/3 "2012-10-10T20:02:33Z")
It places the burden on the child to carry such a device, not that it’s a lot of weight, but the basic concept is bassackward it is not the child’s responsibility nor should it be. And with facial optical recognition it is already unneeded except for twins and other multiple siblings. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/4 "2012-10-10T20:13:31Z")
Facial recognition technology is going to be even more expensive to implement, as well as just as easy to deceive. This article is better than the first, as it actually states why they use it, and the reactions of parents and students. Apart from one religious objection \ the students are fine with it, and the parents seem to understand that, if the school is responsible for the children, then it’s good to know where they are. Otherwise, why bother paying attention to who shows up at all? [http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Northside-keeping-electronic-eye-on-students-3921016.php](http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Northside-keeping-electronic-eye-on-students-3921016.php) ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/5 "2012-10-10T20:18:53Z")
that is doubleplusgood doesn’t anyone care about children’s safety? ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/6 "2012-10-10T20:26:31Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > Facial recognition technology is going to be even more expensive to implement, as well as just as easy to deceive. > > This article is better than the first, as it actually states why they use it, and the reactions of parents and students. Apart from one religious objection \ the students are fine with it, and the parents seem to understand that, if the school is responsible for the children, then it’s good to know where they are. > Otherwise, why bother paying attention to who shows up at all? > > [http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Northside-keeping-electronic-eye-on-students-3921016.php](http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/Northside-keeping-electronic-eye-on-students-3921016.php) That’s Texas, right? The state where children as young as 6 can end up in front of a judge for swearing or get handcuffed for throwing a tantrum in class? I think it’d probably be wise to look at what Texas does in schools, and then do the absolute opposite. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/7 "2012-10-10T20:28:50Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > It places the burden on the child to carry such a device, not that it’s a lot of weight, but the basic concept is bassackward it is not the child’s responsibility nor should it Children love badges. At my last school we gave little enamel badges out to prefects and house captains and various monitors, and the kids adored them and in the entire year only one badge was lost. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/8 "2012-10-10T20:29:13Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > that is doubleplusgood > > doesn’t anyone care about children’s safety? That’s a nice thought, but I do suspect it’s a secondary reason for this. Apparantly, the student roll calls were missing students; I’m going to guess that roll call would happen at X time, and some students would be late and roll into class, missing roll call but not school itself. And…the schools get paid by the state per student that is on the roll call lists. And the primary reason for all of this does seem to be to ensure the schools are getting the body counts, and funding, right. Which I don’t have a problem with, either, though it does seem there could have been a much less expensive way to fix that problem. But I do like the tracking, and to me it doesn’t seem any more ‘prisonlike’ than without it; the students never _could_ go where they willed when they willed it, and this doesn’t change a thing, except to make it easier to actually keep track…which is what is expected of them. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/9 "2012-10-10T20:34:01Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > That’s a nice thought, but I do suspect it’s a secondary reason for this. Apparantly, the student roll calls were missing students; I’m going to guess that roll call would happen at X time, and some students would be late and roll into class, missing roll call but not school itself. Guess what, you can solve that without shelling out tens of thousands on RFID equipment. You have a late register in the school office, or use the teacher’s computer to register children throughout the day. Tracking is a solution in need of a problem. ---
**Author:** ![TheChileanBlob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thechileanblob/32/435_2.png) [@TheChileanBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheChileanBlob)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/10 "2012-10-10T20:59:28Z")
Seems like it might be good for on a field trip. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/11 "2012-10-10T21:06:53Z")
> [@TheChileanBlob](#): > > Seems like it might be good for on a field trip. How would that work? The school outfits the museum with the tracking system before they arrive? Shit, we’re going to the forest…I’m going to need 1400 additional RFID sensors and two weeks to install them! Or, you can take enough adults to cover the children, keep eyes on children at all times and keep paper registers and check them regularly. Look, kids are probably _the safest_ they can possibly be whilst they’re in school… Once they get home, that’s when the majority of the bad shit starts to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/12 "2012-10-10T21:34:03Z")
I could see this technology being useful as a safety device for young children who might become lost or kidnapped. Hanging around one’s neck would be useless, obviously, but I guess these things could be surgically implanted non-intrusively. It might be similarly applicable for rich persons in dangerous locales. But I think the wearer should always be able to turn it off from transmitting if they so choose. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/13 "2012-10-10T21:46:16Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > I could see this technology being useful as a safety device for young children who might become lost or kidnapped. Hanging around one’s neck would be useless, obviously, but I guess these things could be surgically implanted non-intrusively. It might be similarly applicable for rich persons in dangerous locales. But I think the wearer should always be able to turn it off from transmitting if they so choose. RFID tags are generally passive (active ones do exist, but the kind used for access control or warehouse management are passive), they only transmit when they encountered a radio signal of the correct frequency, and their range is generally short. Unless you have detectors set up all over the place and people pass within a few inches of these detectors they are useless for tracking people. An active tracker would have to be quite a bit bigger, probably the size of a deck of cards, would need a cellular transmitter and GPS aerial, both of which are cheap and easy to set up, the difficult thing is powering the damn things, do you really want a LiPo battery in your chest? As for allowing the user to turn the device on and off, forget it, unless you want to give the kidnappers a handy “Cut Here” marker. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/14 "2012-10-10T21:48:29Z")
If this was truly for safety, they’d have all school employees and visitors also wearing these badges and their activities also documented. ---
**Author:** ![Double\_Foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85e7bf/32.png) [@Double\_Foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Double_Foolscap)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/15 "2012-10-12T11:21:20Z")
Who’s monitoring whether kids aren’t swapping badges, leaving them in each others’ bags, and a hundred other ways to fool this type of thing? Turning a school into the universe from Shadowrun isn’t going to solve more problems than it creates. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/16 "2012-10-12T11:31:41Z")
> [@Szlater](#): > > RFID tags are generally passive (active ones do exist, but the kind used for access control or warehouse management are passive), they only transmit when they encountered a radio signal of the correct frequency, and their range is generally short. Unless you have detectors set up all over the place and people pass within a few inches of these detectors they are useless for tracking people. > > An active tracker would have to be quite a bit bigger, probably the size of a deck of cards, would need a cellular transmitter and GPS aerial, both of which are cheap and easy to set up, the difficult thing is powering the damn things, do you really want a LiPo battery in your chest? As for allowing the user to turn the device on and off, forget it, unless you want to give the kidnappers a handy “Cut Here” marker. Did you even read the article? > [@](#): > > Unlike passive chips that transmit data only when scanned by a reader, these chips have batteries and broadcast a constant signal so they can track students’ exact locations on school property, down to where they’re sitting—whether it’s at a desk, in a counselor’s office, or on the toilet. It’s the second damned paragraph. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/17 "2012-10-12T12:03:29Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Did you even read the article? > > It’s the second damned paragraph. No, because I’m talking about implantable tags in response to **Red Wiggler** , not the bullshit school tags. Did you even read my post, it’s in the damned post! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/18 "2012-10-12T12:21:39Z")
> [@TheChileanBlob](#): > > Seems like it might be good for on a field trip. Only a Near Field Trip. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/19 "2012-10-12T12:25:32Z")
Ankle bracelets and orange jumpsuits as school uniforms. There ya go. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346/20 "2012-10-12T12:30:20Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Only a Near Field Trip. Now that’s comedy 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rfid-badges-for-schoolchildren-your-opinion/637346.md?page=2)