Tracking your student

[muirecan]

I'm amused.  Given all the panic and fuss about tracking students with RFID tags I'm kind of amused that no one thinks twice about giving their kid a smartphone, ipod, or similar wi-fi enabled device.  I'm working with the new wireless system we are rolling out at a school and when it is done using 33 wireless access points I can track any WiFi

Comments

[seawasp]

Well, you *can* track the other devices, but the card has NO OTHER FUNCTION except to track people.

[muirecan]

I just think they would be horrified if I pulled up the campus map on the control interface and then showed the students electronic device moving around campus during the day.

The RFID card was an attempt to fix a human problem with technology. I've always been a bit ambiguous about it not disliking it intensely but not seeing a huge need for it. Basically as the demo I saw of it went like this. You give a student RFID chip 1234. When that card/chip passes through a monitored door it enters an entry in a database that notes door and time and possibly which way they passed through the door. It wasn't a big intrusive system and it couldn't be used to actively track a student away from campus for all the paranoia about that expressed by parents.

Now a Wi-FI enabled device can be actively tracked by anyone who knows it's MAC address something relatively easy to pick up. But since people want the phones they tend to forget about how easy they are to track. I mean even the app stores have apps to track them.