School pupils tagged in RFID trial
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Child-tagging angers privacy campaigners....
Ten school children at Hungerhill School in South Yorkshire have worn radio frequency indentification (RFID) chips sewn into their uniforms for the past eight months, as part of an investigation into whether tagging could solve truancy.
The chips are read by a system which monitors the childs movements, reports them to teachers when they are somewhere they are not supposed to be, and can even restrict access to areas of the school.
The system's inventor, Trevor Darnborough, told reporters that "the Department for Education and Skills is keen to promote use of electronic registration in schools because of its benefits in efficiently monitoring pupils' attendance and the speedy retrieval and analysis of data.
The system saves valuable lesson time, often wasted in registration and monitoring, while ensuring parents of their children's security, added Darnborough.
News of the trial has alarmed civil rights campaigners, including David Clouter, a parent who formed the Leave Them Kids Alone group which opposes surveillance and fingerprinting in schools. Tagging is what we do to criminals we let out of prison early, he said. It's the first time I've ever heard of this happening and I think it's appalling.
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