[Oz-teachers] Student ID Cards

[Stephen Loosley]

Hi all ..

It appears that quite soon Australian schools might need the guidance
and assurance of well developed legislation regarding student ID cards.   

I know many (most?) local secondary schools issue photo ID cards with 
which students barcode their library loans and classroom attendance etc.

According to Roger's research noted, it is apparent that if the student ID
cards are used as student locating devices, (as might already happen in
some Australian schools for family-emergency calls) then, serious issues
regarding privacy may arise, and especially if schools go with RFID cards.

At 03:29 PM 27/02/2005, Roger Clarke wrote: 

>From EPIC Alert 12.04, at 

http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_12.04.html

The key piece of new information is the resource-page at: 

http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/children.html

============================================================
[2] California School Drops RFID Tracking Program After EPIC Protest 
============================================================

Last week, Brittan Elementary School in Sutter, Calif., abandoned an 
RFID tracking pilot program after InCom, the company which developed 
the technology, pulled out of its agreement with the school. (See EPIC 
Alert 12.03.) In mid-January the school started requiring its students 
to wear radio frequency identification badges that tracked every 
student's movements in and around the school on a real-time basis
and displayed the child's picture, name, grade and class year.

Two weeks ago, EPIC, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
and ACLU-Northern California, urged the Brittan School officials in a 
joint letter to terminate the program. The letter argued that the 
program raised serious safety and civil liberties implications and, 
most importantly, breached children's right to privacy and dignity by 
treating them like cattle or pieces of inventory.

Soon after the letter was sent and a meeting for parents took place to 
discuss the issue with the school administration, the media all around 
the country began reporting about the tracking system and its risks 
for privacy, parents' threats of lawsuits and protests, and the 
involvement of civil liberties groups, which eventually pushed InCom 
to call off the testing at the Brittan School.

EPIC's press release:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/prs_rls-020705.html

EPIC-ACLU-EFF joint letter to the Brittan School Board:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/brittan-letter.pdf

For more information about how RFIDs affect children, visit EPIC's 
Children and RFID Systems Page:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/rfid/children.html

-- 
Roger Clarke http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

Visiting Professor in the Baker Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre, UNSW 
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program, University of Hong Kong 
Visiting Fellow in Computer Science, Australian National University 
_______________________________________________


Cheers, people
Stephen Loosley
Melbourne, Australia