Tag Archives | Identity Cards

Texas Schools Punishing Students Who Refuse To Wear Microchip Tracking Devices

By on October 17, 2012 in News 23

Via Russia Today, being remotely tracked may become part and parcel of being a teenager:

A school district in Texas came under fire earlier this year when it announced that it would require students to wear microchip-embedded ID cards at all times. Now, students who refuse to be monitored say they are feeling the repercussions.

Students who refuse to walk the school halls with the card in their pocket or around their neck claim they are being tormented by instructors, barred from participating in certain school functions, [and] turned away from common areas like cafeterias and libraries.

Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, said educators have ignored her pleas to respect her privacy and told her she cannot participate in school elections if she refuses to comply with the tracking program.

After Hernandez refused to wear an RFID chip, WND reported that Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo issued a statement to the girl’s parents: “We are simply asking your daughter to wear an ID badge as every other student and adult on the Jay campus is asked to do.” If she is allowed to forego the tracking now, the repercussions will be harsher than just revoking voting rights for homecoming contests once the school makes location-monitoring mandatory, he argued.

… Read the rest

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Houston School Districts To Use Electronic Cattle Tags On Children

By on June 5, 2012 in News 11

Photo: ken ratcliff (CC)

In a sense, it’s positive that we at least care about our children’s whereabouts as much as prized livestock. The Dallas Morning News writes:

Two school districts in the Houston area have begun monitoring students whereabouts on campus by issuing them identification badges with radio frequency identification technology – the same technology used to track cattle.

The Spring school district in Houston has distributed the ID badges to about 13,500 of its 36,000 students since December 2008. The Santa Fe school district, about 30 miles south of Houston, began using the badges this year.

School officials say the devices improve security and increase attendance rates, a figure that’s important because some school funding is tied to attendance. ”It feels like someone’s watching you at all times,” said Jacorey Jackson, 11, a sixth-grader at Bailey.

… Read the rest

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Facebook Personal ID Cards

By on February 27, 2012 in News 19

fb_id_tbx_740Created by German artist Tobias Leingruber and available via the hypothetical government agency the FB Bureau. Why wait until these become mandatory? Get yours now:

With more than 800 million users Facebook is the dominant identity system on the web. When signing-up for new services around the open web it’s quite common to use Facebook Connect instead of creating a new user account. People stop ranting on blog comments because they only allow comments connected to your “real name” aka “Facebook Identity” (till the end of time).

For the good or bad we are losing anonymity and Facebook Inc. is establishing order in this “world wild web” (for profit, not necessarily for the good of society). A future where a Facebook Identity becomes more important than any governments’ doesn’t seem unrealistic.

… Read the rest

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Bank ‘Activity’ Required For Wisconsin Voter ID

By on July 27, 2011 in News 14

In the state of Wisconsin, you may be denied the ability to vote for lack of sufficient recent “bank activity”. A woman surreptitiously filmed the interactions as her 18-year-old son leaps through hurdle after hurdle in an attempt to get a constitutionally-guaranteed state ID so that he could vote. At the DMV, the pair is told that voter IDs were not issued when voters’ bank accounts did not show enough “activity.” The clerk had no answer when asked what would happen in the case of a resident who was homeless or unemployed, or too poor to maintain the minimum balance required for a checking account.

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U.S. National Biometric ID Cards Coming Soon

By on March 10, 2010 in News 9

A dream of governments worldwide has long been to make people carry identification papers or cards, but the United States has always rejected direct attempts to institute such a program. That may be about to change, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker…

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