----- Original Message -----
From: Gotemf
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 1:59 PM
Subject: AT&T Offers GPS and RFID Child Tracking

> AT&T Offers GPS and RFID Child Tracking

> 12-14-2007
> Digital Trends

> There's no doubt that schools and teachers can face significant challenges
> trying to keep track of hundreds of students and assure their safety while
> simultaneously teaching them something. (I can personally attest that I
> was rarely
> learning something at the same time my teachers knew where I was.) Now
> AT&T is
> looking to apply technology to the problem, offering a comprehensive
> child-tracking solution for the K-12 education market combining RFID and
> GPS
> technologies to enable schools to keep track of school bus locations and
> speed while
> simultaneously monitoring events within the vehicles.
> "Our RFID and MRM services help K-12 institutions rapidly deploy
> end-to-end
> solutions without significant capital investment," said Ann Rotatori, vice
> president of Business Marketing for AT&T, in a statement. "For the first
> time,
> school districts can now turn to a network services provider for all of
> their
> RFID and MRM needs, and that enables them to save money, make the most of
> their
> assets and resources and enhance student safety."
> AT&T envisions the system being used to track in-school assets like
> computers, projectors, laptop computers, and lab equipment. But the
> company is also
> pitching the technology as a means to track students and people directly,
> enforcing attendance and tracking visitors on school grounds (including
> alerting
> administrators to people in unauthorized areas). The system is designed to
> tie in
> with existing 802.11 Wi-Fi wireless networking solutions and display
> tracking
> information via a Web-based portal.
> Curiously, nowhere in AT&T's description of the technology does the
> company
> mention the privacy rights of students, or any ability for students or
> parents
> to opt out of such a system. We imagine the company is leaving such policy
> decisions up to individual schools and districts.
> Of course, kids being the way they are, they will no doubt come up with
> ways
> to circumvent in-school and in-bus RFID tracking within a few minutes of
> the
> system being deployed. After all, it took my generation about 30 seconds
> to
> "acquire" the magical hall passes that let us go anywhere we wanted at any
> time.
> We have to assume kids these days are at least as clever.

> http://news.digitaltrends.com/news/story/15112/printer_friendly/att_o...

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