Student Andrea Hernandez suspended for refusing to wear school tracking system
WHEN student Andrea Hernandez from John Jay High School’s Science and Engineering Academy in San Antonio, Texas, was told to wear a tracking device to check on her movements, she declined. She said the radio frequency identification (RDIF) tracking device was akin to wearing the mark of the Beast.
The beeper is part of the “Student Locator Project”. The school needs to prove students are in attendance to get funding. It need to prove to the treasurers that bums are on seats. Students show the chipped lanyard at all times. If they want to vote, use the cafe or the library, students must show their chipped ID. It’s the same technology used to track prison inmates.
Says Hernandez:
“I feel it’s an invasion of my religious beliefs. I feel it’s the implementation of the Mark of the Beast. It’s also an invasion of my privacy and my other rights.”
The school decided to act. It offered to remove the tracking chip from Hernandez’s card. She would need to wear the new ID, pretending that she was on the programme. She refused.
So. The school suspended her. They now know where she isn’t.
Her case has been taken up by the Rutherford Institute, “a civil liberties organization that provides free legal services to people whose constitutional and human rights have been threatened or violated.”
John Whitehead, the institute’s president said:
“There is something fundamentally disturbing about this school district’s insistence on steamrolling students into complying with programs that have nothing whatsoever to do with academic priorities and everything to do with fattening school coffers.”
Hernandez wants to go back to school and not have to wear the ID.
Is she just Bolshy? Or should we be afraid? The Times says RDIF is pretty common:
These are now being used in tags that are similar to barcode labels and carry out much the same function — identifying products. However, whereas barcodes simply tell you that an item is, say, a tin of peas, RFID tags have a unique number and can tell you exactly WHICH tin of peas. And whereas barcodes are read by a laser beam, RFID tags contain tiny antenna loops that communicate by radio waves when contacted by an RFID reader (a transmitter/receiver.) They also have the capacity to hold much more information than simply price and product. For example, your new biometric British passport will contain RFID technology that will hold your name, age, place of birth, your picture and one other biometric identifier, possibly an image of your retina.
These chips are tiny. They can be placed pretty much anywhere: your clothing; your car; your body…
Spotter: Wired
Posted: 22nd, November 2012 | In: Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
