p2pnet.net News:- Northern California’s Brittan Elementary School is using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) spy chips to track students who are, “required to prominently display the badges by wearing them around the neck at all times,” says a civil liberties group.

“The device transmits private information to a computer on campus whenever a student passes under one of the scanners,” says the ACLU of Northern California in a letter to the Brittan Board of Trustees.

ID badges include student names, photos, grades, school names, class year and a four-digit school ID number.

Brittan Elementary is in the rural community of Sutter, eight miles west of Yuba City.

“Forcing my child to be tracked with a RFID device – without our consent or knowledge – is a complete invasion of our privacy,” say Michael and Dawn Cantrall.

“Our 7th grader came home wearing the ID badge prominently displayed around her neck– if someone wants to harm my child, the mandatory school ID card has just made that task easier.”

The Cantralls filed a formal complaint against the Brittan Elementary School Board on January 30th after meeting with several school officials.

The ACLU-NC also quotes Jeffrey and Michele Tatro, parents of a 13-year-old at Brittan, as saying: “It is our goal that no child in the United States be tagged or tracked. We want it to be stopped here, in Sutter California, and we don’t want any child to be tracked anywhere. Our children are not pieces of inventory.”

In a letter sent to the Brittan Board of Trustees, the group calls on the school board to recognize the, “serious safety and civil liberties implications” and demands that it, “terminate this ill-advised test immediately.”

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) are also signatories.

[NOTE: This is a repost of a story from Tuesday to make sure it doesn’t get forgotten.]

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See:-
around the neck - Parents and Civil Liberties Groups Urge School District to Terminate Use of Tracking Devices, ACLU-NC, February 7, 2005

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