Tennessee State Forces Students and Staff to Wear Trackable IDs
This story has privacy violations written all over it. Welcome to the brave new world.
Jaleesa Baulkman of University Herald reports.
Tennessee State University Policy Forces Students, Staff To Wear Trackable ID Badges At All Times
Students, faculty, staff and administrators at Tennessee State University will be required to wear and display official trackable identification badges at all times on campus, Campus Reform reported.
The new policy, which will be effective March 1, requires members of the university to wear identification badges – complete with tracking technology – while on campus or attending campus events. Failure to comply with the new policy may result in “employee disciplinary action, student judicial action or removal from University property.”
“Our primary concern is always to provide a safe and healthy environment for all of our students, employees and visitors,” Dr. Curtis Johnson, associate vice president for Administration, who is in charge of Emergency Management. “Safety on our campus is priority number one, and with the new policy, we want to ensure that our students, faculty and staff are safe at all times.”
To comply with the new policy, students and staff have to get a new identification badge to with built-in chip that “can now restrict access to certain areas and track who is entering different buildings,” NewsChannel5.com reported.
The University will hand out clip-on ID badge holders and lanyards to students and employees.
According to University officials, members of the campus community have embraced the new policy, saying that they have no problem with wearing their badges, as long as the policy is intended to improve security and safety.
“If it is for the safety of our students, faculty and staff, I am all for it,” Dr. Veronica Oates, associate professor of Family and Consumer Sciences and president of the Faculty Senate, said in a statement.
Tennessee State University Policy Forces Students, Staff To Wear Trackable ID Badges At All Times (University Herald)
Comments
Well, students can transfer to another school and staff can quit. Don’t like the policy, then leave and the school and evaluate the consequences of the tracking policy.
RFID isn’t “trackable”. It is simply a radio ID, readable from a few feet away. IF (and I mean IF) you put sensors on every entrance and exit to a building, you can find out who has entered and who has exited. You get the same information as if you used keycards with door locks.
But once people are away from the immediate location of the sensor, they could be anywhere.
And yes, I’ve seen TV shows where they track RFID from space, but that’s just because TV writers are innumerate morons.
Now, if you think that keycards are an intolerable privacy risk, then fine. But the hysteria over RFID is just that.
RFIDs are just the best known of the unpowered transponders. A larger one can be read from further away (maybe a couple hundred feet under ideal conditions, I’ve been out of electronics for too long to be sure).
Guest badges would have to be available and required, and the requirement strictly enforced. Not going to happen at a typical college. They’d also have to be coded to reference a particular person so someone cannot steal another person’s badge, requiring a level of enforcement difficult at a college level.
All things considered, this smacks of more “security theatre”.
“Dr. Veronica Oates, associate professor of Family and Consumer Sciences“
They have Home-Ec at college now…?