Friday, 26 October 2012
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Chips That Track Your Child
Technology can be super awesome – but it can also be really scary. One of the latest retail trends uses modern technology to embed chips in products so that they can be tracked during shipment and in store. The chips are called RFID chips short for radio frequency identification (it's featured to the left). The goal is for marketers to be able to track where you are with a product, once the chip passes a sensor you’re tagged. It’s stalking to a new level. It’s creepy enough in your handbag, but what’s even stranger is that some parents want to embed the chips in their children like tracking devices.A school in California is already doing it – they use the chips to take attendance and to track what meals students choose at lunch time. The potential for research is evident, you could use the data for something as simple as learning which lunch time specials are more popular, or you could use it to track a student’s movement throughout the day to determine if the child is hyper active. Another bonus is that using the chips to take attendance cuts down on wasted time in the class room, the California institution says that use of the chips is set to provide an additional 3,000 hours of instruction per year. That’s a lot of extra time for students to learn, and hey isn’t that what school’s all about? Another school in Missouri is using RFID chips to track its school bus system in order to ensure the system runs smoothly. A school in Texas uses the system through student ID cards to track a student’s movements through the campus.
The technology has a ton of positive advantages but aside from all the benefits the chips come with some concerns. Parents still have concerns (and rightly so) about their children’s privacy. How long can the chips store the data? Where does the data end up? It all depends on whose recording it and for what purpose. Some systems that focus merely on capturing behavioral data of students track individuals through meaningless ID numbers others create full profiles. So the privacy level depends. Some have suggested that using the chips to track students is an equivalent to treating them like a herd of cattle and if you’ve got a really detailed system in place it’s hard to disagree. After all RFID would give you a complete mark up of every step the child took – it’s kind of crazy.
How the child carries the chip is also up for debate. Currently the chips have been embedded in student ID cards, or on bracelets, but certain schools have even embedded them in school uniforms. Scientists have even been talking about embedding the chips in children’s skin in the near future. It sounds like a freaky-science fiction movie meant to go wrong if you ask me. But it’s also got its benefits, if a kid was kidnapped or ran away RFID can help find them. Several companies believe that the practice will become commonplace, and among the believers is giant AT&T. But if we get too comfortable with the chips and it becomes a norm amongst students and the overall population, who’s to say the chips can’t eventually be used by the government or even corporations to track consumers everywhere? Would there be regulations instituted for the sake of privacy?
What do you think? Would you want your kid tracked by RFID?
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- From: samanthamellone
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Comments (14)
I don't like the idea of embedding a tracking device under my children's skin. It's unnecessary in my opinion. Yes, the chips could be helpful in tracking down an abducted child, but I truly feel the risks far outweigh the good. I don't even like the idea of chips being embedded in student ID cards and whatnot. I think you should have to sign a waiver or something giving your consent to have your movements, purchases and whatever else tracked for research and development purposes. Whatever happened to privacy? Why don't we all just have a member of the CIA or FBI follow us around all day long....
I don't really see a problem. It's a good idea for young students; I really like the bracelet idea. What are parents concerned about? It's not like it has a video monitor on it..it's showing where your child is. Do they think school officials are going to come kidnap them just because they can see where they are? They could even have them leave the bracelets at school so they can't track them when they get home (or maybe that is already how they do it?)
I really don't know about embedding chips in children. I'm sure the parents who have lost their children or had them kidnapped would be all for it. That could be a lifesaver. But I don't know if I want a foreign piece of metal inside my baby when kidnapping is rare. Idk. That's a tough one. They could put it in their shoes, or in a piece of jewelry or something, but of course once that gets taken off you lost them.
"Scientists have even been talking about embedding the chips in children’s skin in the near future." Absolutely unacceptable. The basic idea of tracking my kid bothers me enough as it is. I refuse to use a GPS and I wish I could disable the one in my cell phone.
I've been expecting such a thing for a while. They'll be implanting chips into newborns right away, tracking everything you do, where you are, etc. Parents won't even get a say. (If you've ever had a child - heck, if you've ever been a patient - you should have quickly realized that your input is already limited and that you are not kept informed about what they are doing behind the scenes.) Hell, they could even be made to store bank account data. Quick transactions, just run your wrist over the scanner, right? Call me paranoid if you want. I've paid enough attention to what the government is (and has been) doing, claiming 'safety' or 'think of the children!' for long enough. You don't even have to be particularly 'in the know' about government and politics to see where things could quickly be heading once the technology allows for it.
@VampireOfSeduction@xanga - GPS doesn't track anything; GPS is a receiving-only system. It detects signals from 4 satellites (out of a system of 27) in orbit around Earth and uses a complex algorithm to calculate your location. The GPS system itself can't share that information unless it's built into a device with some kind of broadcasting or connection ability (e.g. smartphone or tablet). Either of which can detect your location (at least roughly) without GPS; it can triangulate your position based on the cell phone tower signals it receives, or the location of the WiFi network it's connected to. Basically I don't think your concern about GPS is well-founded.
As for RFID, I had to look it up, but the range for passive tags (ones that don't require batteries), is only up to about 2m. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-frequency_identification#Design). Which means that it would be pretty useless for tracking a lost or kidnapped child, unless they passed by a receiver. Not any RFID receiver, but one for that particular series of tags. That doesn't seem terribly practical. It is very practical for ID cards, transportation cards, etc, because tapping a wallet/purse/bag/pocket on a reader is much quicker than taking out a card and swiping it, and definitely quicker than taking attendance. I loved having an RFID chip in my college ID. Those who are concerned about having their card read without authorization can keep it wrapped in metal and take it out to use (people do this with RFID-tagged credit cards).
Verdict: This article has a tone of fear-mongering and the author does not seem to understand (or at least, adequately explain) the technology involved.
fuck that
@LondonsMommy - It's not always about kidnapping. Kids can wander off in an instant. It'd definitely set my mind at ease if mine wandered out of sight.
As far as implants, that's up to individual parents... I wonder if that would increase or decrease paranoia.
As far as schools go though, I really see almost no problem with RFID chips in School ID cards and the like. Frankly, there are a bajillion and a half cameras blanketing school property these days, and you probably can see a child's every step in great detail if you want to take the time. Some of the problem could also be solved if the student data was anonymous... then the school could still gather the data on trends, but not be able to identify individual students.
@VampireOfSeduction@xanga - I feel the same as you do about inserting microchips into people. It's a complete violation of privacy.
They aint chipping me.
Over my dead body, and if anyone tries to put a chip in my kids I will be putting my fist in their face... to start with.
Another reason California is going broke, spending money on needless things.
I believe this is typically referred to as a slippery slope.
@VampireOfSeduction@xanga - "I refuse to use a GPS and I wish I could disable the one in my cell phone."
Two words: burn phone.
My nephew and I discussed this awhile back. He'd like nothing more than to have RFID cards in his school, as it would give him and his band of mischievous little anarchists all kinds of opportunities to phuck with the system: "lose" your ID and have a fellow student, who just happens to attend all the same classes as you, "find" it and return it to you at the end of the day. Or steal a few hundred of them and make it look like a quarter of the school showed up in the same classroom one day. "Have fun kids, don't do anything I wouldn't get caught doing!"
Sub-dermal implants? Which I imagine will stay in their bodies once they grow up from good little students to good little taxpayers? Little too mark-of-the-beastish for my liking. I think that would be too much for most of us, though this would definately be too much for our grandparents so I'm sure our grandkids will gladly bend over for the big hot branding iron.
*files this under "watch ye saints" and "homeschool or die"*
...how does this give back 3,000 hours per year? there are only roughly 190 school days. youre at school for roughly 7 hours, give or take depending on after school or before school activities. so, 3,000 hours divided by 190. thats about 15 hours we are getting back every day. what?