I'm not sure I see the difference between this program and a company that distributes a similar system for employees to track all the same information?
Minors are more easily indoctrinated into accepting that sort of thing. Employers who do this are being just as antisocial and psychopathic as this school district; the difference is that adults are mature enough to say, "This is not right," whereas children will grow up thinking, "This is how the world works, I better accept it."
"Employers who do this are being just as antisocial and psychopathic as this school district"
Because using rfid badges to unlock doors at an office building/control and log access to server rooms, etc is a psychopathic and antisocial thing to do
Most uses of RFID badges for access control have nothing to do with building control or server rooms (and why would you want something as poorly secured as RFID when a smartcard would be equally convenient and far more secure?). Most uses of RFID are based on the same reasoning that leads to the installation of keystroke logging software, MITM devices, etc. -- the idea that employees should be watched at all times, and that the more detail you have about your employees work habits, the better (and you should never have know how to judge the products of their work; after all, that is not the job of a top-level manager).
As an information security professional, I am so glad we use RFID badges. I want to know who is getting into my secure datacenter and when, and be able to revoke that right with the click of a button if things start going pear-shaped with their activities.
RFID is a broad spectrum, not necessarily one technology. Some are more secure than others. Even with the most basic, though, it's pretty easy to clone a key or a keycode as well. Keys can't be revoked if you don't know where they are, and keycode changes require everyone to learn the new keycode. It's a game of give and take.
Well, for one thing, the school is an arm of government, not a private party. We allow private parties to do all sorts of things we don't allow governments to do.
This doesn't change the legal issue in dispute -- whether someone can be compelled to give up a basic civil right in exchange for attending the school she wants to attend.
Is it a basic civil right? To not be monitored in school? Schools have cameras, they have security guards, they have teachers watching you constantly, they have screen monitoring software on the computers, they have locker searches, and all of these have been upheld as Constitutional because in a school, students have no right to privacy.
Whether this particular case (which admittedly is different from other privacy cases I've seen), the girl is choosing to be at this school. The school gave her the option to opt out of the program and just have a normal card, and she refused. The school then gave her another option, which is to return to the school she is legally required to attend rather than the one she is choosing to attend. That seems more than reasonable to me.
A very good question. The answer is that courts decide this sort of thing, and the notion of "civil rights" is a moving target over time.
But if her civil rights are violated, then the fact that she volunteers to be there instead of another school should not be allowed to interfere with the judgment.
How am I so sure? Well, as one example, African-Americans must be allowed to attend the school of their choice, and the argument that they have alternative schools is (in the eyes of the law) insufficient. The south famously argued that African-Americans had their own schools and shouldn't be arguing for admission to other schools. The Supreme Court disagreed.
> The school then gave her another option, which is to return to the school she is legally required to attend rather than the one she is choosing to attend. That seems more than reasonable to me.
Read the history of the U.S. Civil Rights movement, from beginning to end. Then ask yourself whether what you've just said is fair and reasonable.
I agree that I would like the courts to decide on this. We're all armchair observers just making our commentary the way we see it.
I'm not certain that the Civil Rights Act comes into play here, though. The problem there is that the government were mandating that people had to go to different schools just based on their skin color. On the other hand, magnet schools are inherently and legally discriminatory; they discriminate on talent. You're legally required to attend school, but you can qualify for attendance in a magnet school. They're not telling the girl to go back to the girl's school, or back to the black person's school, they're telling her to go back to the same school everyone else goes to, the normal school, the regular school, the legally mandated school. High school is not an alternative school, magnet high schools are. It's not discrimination to make someone go to a school everyone else goes to. Not everyone gets into a magnet high school; she did, and now she's been disqualified. Magnet high schools are not a right.