Using RFID and Wi-Fi to Track Students 183
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports on a proposal to use RFID and wi-fi to track students wherever they go on campus: 'Battery-powered RFID tags are placed on an asset and they communicate with at least three wireless access points inside the network to triangulate a location.' At The Wireless Event in London, 'Marcus Birkl, head of wireless at Siemens, said location tracking of assets or people was one of the biggest incentives for companies, hospitals and education institutions to roll out wi-fi networks.' The article points out that integration of RFID and wi-fi raises the possibility that RFID can be used for remote surveillance."
Hmmm, did the BBC fire their web designers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Help in an emergency? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
and maybe even within a large prison
Apparently some pretty smart RFID tags. (Score:3, Interesting)
So I am gathering that the "brains" on these tags can handle all the handshaking involved with an 802.11(b/g/n) link, including whatever parts of TCP/IP are needed to pass the signal strength data back to the servers? Sounds to me that this is a little bit more involved than just an RFID tag, more like a simple Wi-Fi enabled device that connnects and reports back signal strengths/timing etc. A bit more complex than a chip tied to a small antenna patch (and battery for transmit signal amplification).
Re:OLD News (Score:3, Interesting)
And you left yours where? (Score:3, Interesting)
Adding to your thought: Unless the device is virtually inseperable from the student, what's to say that it isn't left behind during evacuation, or conversely, the student who doesn't evacuate happened to leave their backpack containing it back in their dorm room for the day?
Implant it or strap it to their ankle...otherwise the error rate in tracking the actual location of the individual becomes pretty high.
Re:Students = Assets? (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, when you consider the money students (and by extension, their parents) bring in to the univ through alumni funds, sports tickets, targeted advertising [mtvu.com], the college loan bribery scandal [google.com], and loan companies profiting [msn.com] off of said bribery scandal...
why yes, yes they are.
Might as well have the asset tags...er, student ID's have tracking capabilities so those carbon-based ATMs don't get away.
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
For student privacy/safety, I'd not make it a "public" website. You'd have to have a Parent ID/login before you could look up where your kid has been all day and maybe associated dots/students around them. The teachers and maybe staff would have access, but the general public should only see lots of dots (without ID numbers) moving around just cause it looks neat.
After 2-3 generations of this "safely" happening, then I'd try to expand the program to all schools, or the entire state's new DLs.
Well, if I were an evil overlord with any power...
Cisco has been doing this for a while (Score:3, Interesting)
Great technology for a hospital, prison, and maybe a handful of other specific situations. But a school? It was scary enough seeing it in action for an office building.
-Rick
Knowledge is power... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Crime would be ended since, after any crime, the police would only have to log onto the computer to see who was present at the moment the crime was comitted.
2) Population control would be easy since whenever a boy dot was in very close proximity, say less than 1 inche, to a girl dot, a little pink heart could start flashing on the screen and the government watchperson could administer a little remote-controlled voltage zap to the two parties to ruin the amore of the moment.
3) Transportation problems...a thing of the past...since you would need a permit to commute over road xyz which would specify your permitted travel times.
4) Money? Who would need it? Your id tag would just be automatically billed for whatever. If you didn't pay...you could just be confined to whereever and monitored for compliance. No need for prisons, either, for anyone but the most dangerous.
5) Adultery, stalking, speeding, trespassing, etc. are examples of a few of the many crimes that would be obsoleted due to their degree of difficulty and the ease with which transgressors would be identified.
Okay, maybe we are not quite ready for all of this yet, at least the democrats, but the republicans and Attorney General Gonzales would be down with it, no doubt. Also, what about North Korea, Venezueala, Cuba, China, or Saudi Arabia? They would be fine with this stuff, no doubt. And we all will be eventually, like it or not.
Re:opportunity (Score:3, Interesting)
You got it all wrong, Geeks are socially adjusted. Nerds are the ones that wouldn't go up and talk to someone cute, and even then they wouldn't have the courage to follow them. You're just talking about a straight-up creep. Geek and creep, while sounding similar, are definitely distinctly different.
Re:And you left yours where? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why plug up the Wi-FI APs with this? (Score:3, Interesting)
And NO, using the cell towers to triangulate isn't the same. They didn't keep logs, it was imprecise, and rare. Now it is acceptable to track everyone constantly, and no one even notices.
Re:what's the real crisis -- safety, or obesity? (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC, even with this hysteria, the number of actual cases has been fairly static for decades.
I do not know of any kid at this school who has ever gotten hurt walking or cycling to or from school. I do know of one kid who got hit by a car after school, because her parents were sitting, double-parked, in their air-conditioned SUV on the other side of the street, beckoning her to run across the street and get in.
Whereas the number of children killed and injured on the road has increased. Possibly due to the "school run". The air pollution probably dosn't help either. In the case you describe it sounds like both the child and her parents know little about basic road safety. Which appears all too common, I've seen one of these "parent taxis" trying to play "chicken" with a large truck.