It’s strange that everyone sings the praise of RFID and the main struggle seems to be how to implement the technology in as many places as possible. The Register reports that a UK school is piloting a monitoring system designed to keep tabs on pupils by tracking RFID chips in their uniforms.
According to the Doncaster Free Press, Hungerhill School is testing RFID tracking and data collection on 10 pupils within the school. It’s been developed by local company Darnbro Ltd, which says it is ready to launch the product into the £300m school uniform market.
As Bruce Schneier points out the scheme is not difficult to thwart – simply ask a friend to carry the chipped uniform into class. Despite this, the dream of using technological surveillance seems to blind people of their lack of efficiency and reliability.
The real cost is the actual lack of integrity, the high potential for abusing the system and the fundamental shift in attitude which we are pushing on the children in the project. They are being taught (indoctrinated) that technology should be used as a surveillance tool. Asking the teachers to remember their names would apparently be too much to ask for.