Has anyone else dealt with these?? They’re NFC, track how long they’re in the bathroom, and where they are. I dont know what company this is through, nor what they are doing with all the data they’re collecting. They also use things called smart passes. I’m thinking about emailing the school district and not allowing them to make my child use them. It seems invasive and creepy. :( If anyone has any advice how to approach this, please let me know. Or knows about them in general. I just don’t trust it. Thank you!!
Also!! Would super appreciate helping me lay out properly communicated points, as I am not a confrontational person, and am very mad. I’m worried I’ll just sound like I’m pitching a fit for no reason. I never want to be that parent that is dreaded by schools. But this is important. Especially due to my more sensitive situation (my children are foster kids)
Edit for FAQ:
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each kid gets an individual digital pass, it records their geolocation, behavioral problems, responses to medical questionnaires, and it can be shared with 3rd parties according to their privacy policy. (Students are considered “customers”)
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I’m from the US.
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they are supposed to wear it all day, every day and check in every place they go with kiosks.
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they are also being limited to 3 bathroom breaks a day… So I guess fuck you if you’ve got heavy periods or IBS. And you can’t go in between classes. Bathrooms will be locked unless it’s an emergency, but you have to have a teacher override the lock. Which isn’t exactly how an emergency works.
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one of my biggest concerns as someone in the US is a school shooter situation where they get access to this system and now they can pinpoint where every kid is and is going. Can prevent stragglers.
You have a lot of sway as a parent over the school systems in the US so I’d throw a fit. Maybe even contact some other parents and get together to all throw a fit about this. One person is easier to ignore. This sounds like a complete and total invasion of privacy to the point its mentally conditioning your kid to accept just being monitored by the government 24/7 as an adult. I wouldn’t accept it.
I just hope I’m able to pass on even a bit of my absolute seething hatred for anything that compromises privacy. Wheww it gets me going and I am not an angry person generally, but especially when it comes to my kids, it’s unacceptable.
Honestly kids understand a lot more than people give them credit for. I think if you just explained it to them in plain english they’d get it.
If this was the UK or EU you’d have strong grounds to refuse under GDPR. Do you have any similar protections wherever you are?
Lol. I’m not even in Cali where there’s a bit more privacy. :(( so no, not at all.
It doesn’t really help, but every Little Free Library around would suddenly have a copy or three of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, and all my kids friends would get a copy directly.
Ohh I’ll have to check this book out. Unfortunately with the high use of computers in schools nowadays, getting the kids to read books is like pulling teeth. Which is something I’m also against, but not nearly as mad as I am about this. It makes me sick that they’re just OK with this, and didnt ask fucking permission.
How old are these “kids”? People use that to mean anything from 6 year olds to 17 year olds, which is not the same. The main problem though, is kids being treated as less than people, and the property of others (usually their parents, but sometimes the school or government). If children had more legal rights in general, they wouldn’t require the luck of having a decent parent like you to fight on their behalf - what about all the other students?
They’re middle schoolers, so 11-14. (oh, also they say they use COPPA when it comes to data for kids UNDER 13, so any kid above that? Whatever IG). Yeah. I’m so pissed, for everyone. I am coming at it mainly for my child, but I intend to lay out all my points against its usage AT ALL. I am really nervous about this, as I am a non confrontational person in general. But this actually has me seething. I am afraid I am going to not be able to express my point well.
limiting bathroom breaks is child abuse
I agree. And to 3 a day is insane.
restricting phones in school would reduce time spent in bathrooms
and it would improve student privacy
You tell them you will absolutely not allow this. You simply do not agree to the terms of service, so you won’t be doing it. End discussion.
And if they try and limit bathroom breaks, they can expect a letter from your lawyer. Ask for a key for your kid.
**demand a key
They’re like magnetic locks or some shit.
WTF? Individual trackers? It would be creepy with temporary ones, but defensible. But full on tracking all the time?
Yep. They’re expected to wear if on a lanyard at all times and check in to every place they go with “kiosks”
Went to high school in Germany. There were no hall passes.
Oh the horror!
I’m working on German citizenship (by ancestry). I yearn for public transport.
I was in Berlin in the 80’s and the public transportation system was the best. Everything ran on time and generally often. When I returned to visit many years later I was very disappointed to find out it has been enshitified. I mean, it still works and coming from Florida where it’s practically zero, it’s great, but yeah, it’s changed in a way that really surprised me because it almost goes against the rule following nature of Germans.
I yearn for public transport.
Do not go for Germany then! Their public transport is notoriously bad
I was there for an extended period and its leagues better than nothing lol. Plus it’s the only EU country where I have a path to citizenship
compared to many other places in the world, German public transport is absolutely fine
Compared to most other western and northern European countries they are shit though.
I mean the infrastructure is there, but it’s never on time, sometimes just doesn’t drive at all, driving by car is usually cheaper and faster, the people are absolutely disgusting and so on. You are basically paying more just to have an unreliable and disgusting alternative. I’d love to use it more, but I don’t, I still just drive by car, it might as well not be there in the first place.
One idea for the bathrooms, is getting a doctor that knows your kids the most (most commonly that would be a family doctor, but if a kid has a reason to have a specialized doctor then go to that one) to get a signed letter that tells the school to give the kid(s) unrestricted access to the bathroom. Then give that to the school and the school basically has to do what the doctor says (because you or the doctor could put up a fight if they don’t).
Kids could also make the data useless by checking in to multiple places, or leaving it somewhere in the school (for example).
Sounds like it’s time for those bathroom locks to have an accident.
Limiting bathroom access can have health consequences.
Seems a privacy concern in an active sh-r incident tbh. They just snoop with a radio sniffer, eep.
And what’ll they do if you give the kid a faraday bag? For safety.
Its supposed to stay on a lanyard
Gotta make sure to teach kids early that they have no expectation of privacy no matter where they go and that their every movement and behaviour is tracked. No way in hell would I permit any child of mine to be tracked like that.
The entire situation sounds absolutely bonkers, are schools really that fucking draconian that they lock the bathrooms between classes?? Like that’s when you’re supposed to go so you don’t leave during class and cause a disruption. Shit I had teachers tell me to wait until the next break!
Also limited bathroom breaks is absurd but also gotta train those future proles early so they don’t get any ideas like “I should be able to go to the bathroom when I need to throughout the day”
They’re 100% selling the children’s info to any buyer they can
I remember the shitstorm when my middle school introduced ID lanyards that the kids were supposed to wear, but those didn’t have any kind of tracking
Cite religious beliefs and not wanting your kid forced to carry the Mark of the Beast. Rattle off some Bible verses from Revelations, complain about persecution of Christians, and you’ll be set.
Or, you know, give actual reality-based reasons and hope for sensible school administrators. At the very least, I would expect them to share a privacy policy explaining what this third-party has access to and what they can do with the data.
Personally, a single “bathroom pass” NFC card that a teacher hands out to any student in their class that needs a bathroom visit wouldn’t cause me much security consternation; that any student could be carrying the pass at any given time is enough anonymztion for my concerns. I’d be more concerned about germs; a group pass is going to get nasty.
So genuinely I think making a new sect of a religion that is entirely focused on privacy could be a genius move. Maybe the Satanist Church? They’re already a thing maybe they’d be down for it. Then everyone who is into privacy just cites their religious beliefs whenever they get pushback. The religious in the US are like the most protected class of people there is. So taking advantage of that could be super effective.
Edit: It’s The Satanist Temple I was thinking of and these are their current tenets: I One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason. II The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions. III One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone. IV The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own. V Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs. VI People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused. VII Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
I think you could easily argue Tenet 3 for this case.
No, every student gets one so it’s unique to them. It tracks their geolocation, behavioral problems, responses to medical questionnaires. I read over the privacy policy and they are allowed to share this info with third parties. (As “customers” includes the kids under the schools)
Personally, a single “bathroom pass” NFC card that a teacher hands out to any student in their class that needs a bathroom visit wouldn’t cause me much security consternation; that any student could be carrying the pass at any given time is enough anonymztion for my concerns. I’d be more concerned about germs; a group pass is going to get nasty.
Add in a requirement that the scanners have to be connected to an airgapped system, and the system software ONLY reports/stores if a trip took more than X minutes, where X is some agreed upon time by teachers/parents/etc how long a trip should take, and I think that’s a a decent basis for a product that most school districts will completely ignore while they get wined/dined by someone who completely intends to sell the system at a loss and profit off the data collected.
