San Francisco – The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are calling for answers to critical privacy and safety questions that loom over a controversial federal program to track preschoolers with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips at George Miller III Head Start program in Richmond, California.
ACLU-NC and EFF are calling on officials to ensure that there is a process in place to protect the privacy and safety of schoolchildren, to make sure parents are fully informed about the privacy and safety risks of RFID technology, and to provide for an opt-out program for concerned parents.
Concerns about RFID privacy and safety in California schools came up just five years ago, when an elementary school in Sutter, California attempted a similar program. The plans were scuttled when parents realized the risk to their children. In response, California lawmakers in 2007 overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring that any RFID program in schools include education campaigns for parents and be completely voluntary. While Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did not sign the bill into law, it’s clear that there is widespread concern about this technology.
The RFID program was launched this school year at the school with funds from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).