By Susanne Posel

In the San Antonio school district, the Student Locator Project (SLP) is being beta-tested at Jay High School and Jones Middle School – two schools in the Northside district. The SLP includes the use of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) to “make schools safer, know where our students are while at school, increase revenues, and provide a general purpose ‘smart’ ID card.”

In order to check out school library books, register for classes, pay for school lunches, the “smart” ID card is being employed to trace and track students and their movements on campuses all across America. By using leverage of educators to coerce school districts to adopt this method of tracking students, the argument for the use of the RFID technology is campus safety, efficient registration, and food and library programs.

In Austin, Texas, collaboration with the Global Positioning System (GPS) and RFID technology is being used to deter students from skipping classes. In fact, those students having a negative record with the school they attend are being targeted to be under surveillance.

An estimated 1,700 students have already been pledged to the program with parental permission. These students are assigned a “mentor” who oversees the actions of the students and to whom the students must contact on a weekly basis to report to. This is reminiscent of having a parole officer for student who have not committed a crime, yet are being touted as pre-criminals.

We are already being tracked through several modes :

• GPS

• Internet

• Traffic Cameras

• Computer Cameras and Microphones

• Public Sound Surveillance

• Facial Recognition

Even neuroscientists at University of California Berkeley used a technique where they monitored the brain activity of individuals as they listened to words being spoken. As the subjects listened to the words being spoken, a computer program analyzed brain activity in the temporal lobe, and how the brain interpreted and recreated specific words or sounds.

IBM is working on mind reading technology and a bar code reader that can read your DNA.

RFID chips used in cell phones can track a user within centimeters of their GPS location thanks to new technology being employed in smartphones. Apple, Google and Microsoft have been tracking their customers for years, storing personal digital data and collaborating with law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The CIA is able to remotely intercept and access every email, phone call, text message, chat, and even direct conversation supposedly held in the privacy of your own home.

CIA Director David Petraeus spoke before Congress, speculating about the “internet of things”. Petraeus said:

Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification [RFID chips], sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters — all connected to the next-generation internet using abundant, low-cost, and high-power computing . . . the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.

An indicator of these plans can be found on the underside of any electronic device in your home. Even on the underside of a simple calculator, toaster oven, and even your refrigerator; you will find the following:

This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1) This device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

What this disclaimer means is that this device is not allowed to jam or block any signals and must accept any incoming signal given (by FCC regulations under Part 15 of the FCC Rules).

The uses of these chips appear sensible and harmless until you think about the implications of being remotely tracked by nearly everything you own and come into contact. When a technology is imbedded in all facets of our lives, then it may come to mind to question its purpose. The RFID chip can and has been used to gather information an individual would not otherwise readily give.