Belgaum, Feb. 3: Big Brother is here for the little ones. In a move that could set off a controversy, students at a Belgaum school must now wear a radio frequency tag around their necks so that schools and parents can keep track of them all day.
The card, appropriately called Keeptrack, "will have all the information from the time a child leaves for school till the time she goes home. At regular intervals, parents will get SMSes on their cellphones about their children’s whereabouts," says Dr Panchasheila Qadri, principal and administrator of Love Dale Central School.
At the school, Keeptrack will serve as an identity card and help keep tabs on attendance, academic performance as well as movements.
Dr Qadri said the system was affordable for all schools and was needed for children’s safety and security given the long distances they have to commute.
How it works: Students wear the RFID device — a card with a chip and a unique identification tag — around their neck. A reader installed at the school records a student’s arrival, and subsequent movements, passing it on to a central computer.
Messages are then generated automatically and sent to parents and others.
Naushad Bijapur