U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students

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U.S. School District to Begin Microchipping Students

_http://www.naturalnews.com/023445.html_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/023445.html)

 

NaturalNews) A Rhode Island school district has announced a pilot program to

monitor student movements by means of radio frequency identification (RFID)

chips implanted in their schoolbags.

 

The Middletown School District, in partnership with MAP Information

Technology Corp., has launched a pilot program to implant RFID chips into the

schoolbags of 80 children at the Aquidneck School. Each chip would be

programmed

with a student identification number, and would be read by an external device

installed in one of two school buses. The buses would also be fitted with

global positioning system (GPS) devices.

 

Parents or school officials could log onto a school web site to see whether

and when specific children had entered or exited which bus, and to look up

the bus's current location as provided by the GPS device.

 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has criticized the plan as an

invasion of children's privacy and a potential risk to their safety.

 

" There's absolutely no need to be tagging children, " said Stephen Brown,

executive director of the ACLU's Rhode Island chapter. According to Brown, the

school district should already know where its students are.

 

" [This program is] a solution in search of a problem, " Brown said.

 

The school district says that its current plan is no different than other

programs already in place for _parents_

(http://www.naturalnews.com/parents.html) to monitor their children's school

experience. For example, parents can

already check on their children's attendance records and what they have for

lunch, said district Superintendent Rosemary Kraeger.

 

Brown disputed this argument. The school is perfectly entitled to track its

buses, he said, but " it's a quantitative leap to monitor children

themselves. " He raised the question of whether unauthorized individuals could

use easily

available _RFID_ (http://www.naturalnews.com/RFID.html) readers to find out

students' private information and monitor their movements.

 

Because the pilot program is being provided to the school district at no

cost, it did not require approval from the Rhode Island ethics commission.