Think Before Banning:
A Response to Concerns about RFID

In CoSN’s Hot Technologies report (November 2004), RFID technology was identified as a potential time saver and security tool for school districts. Despite a recent backlash against the technology, we still believe there is a place and a purpose for RFID in schools.

We raise this issue because legislation to ban RFID from schools has been proposed in several states. As an educational technology leadership organization, CoSN encourages thoughtful discussion around the potentials of emerging technologies as well as consideration of appropriate concerns.

From our original report:

Capturing relevant information about people, supplies, security, circulation, and sales of cafeteria meals and other items presents increasing challenges to school systems. Radio Frequency Identification Data (RFID) may be the answer. This technology combines a small radio transmitter with detection devices for tracking many different assets.

In schools, this technology enables educators to know the location of any smart tag. One application is to embed student ID cards with smart tags. Depending on where readers are placed, administrators can keep track of when students get on and off the school bus, arrive at school, and move through the building. Smart tags in parking lots permit help schools to track student vehicles on campus and manage parent pickups and dropoffs of younger students. RFID technology can be used to inventory equipment or charge student accounts for meals.

Concerns about the technology center around two privacy issues: what information is being tracked, and who might have access to it. Privacy and security are essential issues to address in the deployment of all systems and procedures to collect or share student information. Any mode of collecting information—from a phone call to a paper file to an RFID tag—has privacy and security risks. In fact, an RFID tag, deployed appropriately, might provide a more private way to collect and store information.

The basic RFID system consists of four components: an antenna; a reader or transceiver with decoding technology; a smart tag or computer chip transponder, which is programmed with unique, identifying information; and a back-end database or information processing software, which collects and processes the data.

The location of the readers determines what types of movements are captured, and only the information on the chip is transmitted. Even though the risk of a surreptitious reader intercepting the information is small, the data transmitted is meaningless without access to the back-end system. RFID may be used as a key to control access or as an identifier to locate assets (such as library books or digital projectors) that have been misplaced. A successful RFID deployment begins with a clear policy for how it will be used, what information will be gathered, how long it will be kept, and how it will be protected.

NASCIO, an organization of state chief information officers, recommends that deployments start with a privacy impact assessment to identify any ways that ID badges using RFID tags may be invasive beyond reasonable privacy expectations. They also recommend notifying employees of the tags’ capabilities whether or not they are used.

Parents and students have a right to know what information is being gathered about them, who has access to it, and how it is protected. It is up to school district leaders to create and communicate these policies. We believe that RFID and other information technologies can result in more privacy and better security when deployed properly and in partnership with the community.

One final note: technology and privacy are separate issues and banning one technology does not begin to address the many complex issues of children's privacy and might actually give a dangerous impression that privacy has been addressed when it has not. There is no substitute for a carefully formed privacy policy regarding students (or employees or customers or citizens) and the legislation and regulations to enforce those policies. Privacy policy, not RFID or any individual technology, is one of the large issue of our times.

Sources

• CoSN Emerging Technologies Committee, Hot Technologies for K-12 Schools, November 2004
  www.cosn.org/resources/emerging_technologies/hot.cfm
• Matt Richtel, “In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye,” The New York Times, November 17, 2004
  www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/technology/17tag.html
• Julia Scheeres, “Three R’s: Reading, Writing, RFID,” Wired, October 24, 2003
  www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60898,00.html
• Kim Zetter, “School RFID Plan Gets an F,” Wired, February 11, 2005
  www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,66554,00.html
• Kim Zetter, “State Bill to Limit RFID,” Wired, April 29, 2005
  www.wired.com/news/privacy/1,67382-0.html
• InCom Corporation
  www.incomcorporation.com/
• RFID Journal FAQ
  www.rfidjournal.com/faq
• RFID in Education: Revolutionary or Evolutionary? Sun Microsystems
  www.sun.com/emrkt/educonnection/newsletter/0505eduinsight.html
• NASCIO Research Brief, September 2005

About CoSN

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) is the country’s premier voice in education technology leadership with a mission to serve as the national organization for K-12 technology leaders who use technology strategically to ultimately improve teaching and learning. CoSN provides products and services to support and nurture leadership development, advocacy, coalition building, and awareness of emerging technologies. For further information, visit www.cosn.org.

Special thanks to Karen Greenwood Henke and Darrell Walery for preparation of this policy statement.

04/25/06