Friday, September 21, 2012
Government Schools Using RFID Chips to Track Students
The Northside school district in Austin, Texas is implementing a program that tracks its students with RFID chips in their school ID’s, which are worn around their necks. The stated purpose is to increase attendance and thereby increase revenue. Schools with attendance problems receive less revenue from the state than those without attendance problems. So, the theory is that if they can raise attendance through tracking students, they’ll bring in more revenue from the state.
School officials are lauding this program and saying that it will pay for itself. Although the school will be spending over half a million dollars just to implement it and over $100,000 a year to maintain it, they anticipate bringing in $1.7 million in state revenue.
They claim that they’re doing the parents a favor by knowing where the students are at all times. The Northside Independent School District made this statement:
Northside ISD is harnessing the power of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues and provide a general purpose “smart” ID card. Parents entrust us with their children and expect that we always know where their children are; this technology will help us do that.
