At the start of this school year, as part of its reporting requirements mandated by the federal Head Start program, the George Miller III Head Start program based out of Richmond, Calif., began using RFID chips to track 200 preschoolers.
According to a report by the San Francisco Examiner, the RFID technology was made possible through a Federal Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant that allowed the program to install sensors around its site that would read signals put out by RFID chips embedded in jerseys worn by the program’s students. The purpose of the data collection was to track attendance and meals, which had previously been done manually by Head Start instructors.
Karen Mitchoof, a public information officer for the county department that runs the program, told the Examiner “personal identifying information is not retained and reported” for the students who wear the RFID jerseys, and that parents who wish to opt out of the program can have their child’s data tracked manually.
The county representative also told the newspaper that “real-time information for each student” would be tracked, including – apparently – location data.
This new tracking method has created a bit of a controversy among privacy advocates in California, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU of Northern California have issued a joint letter to the director of the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department, which oversees the Head Start program, and the Inspector General of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The two advocacy groups are asking officials to detail technical and security measures that are being implemented to protect the privacy of collected information, as well as details about exactly what data are being collected, how long it will be retained, and who will have access.
"This program allows for far more invasive surveillance than is required for attendance and other record-keeping for a Head Start program," said EFF senior staff attorney Lee Tien in a press release statement. "We want to know how and when privacy and security issues were considered in the development of this program, and how many other schools will be pressured to implement this system."