Children with microchips in their satchels so that their whereabouts can be tracked, school personnel barricaded behind closed doors over which are enthroned video surveillance systems; this is what we are approaching in the best of all possible worlds. Symptoms of practices which contribute to reinforcing the high security which henceforth will enter more or less surreptitiously into the way of life in school, no doubt to the great satisfaction of the electronics industry.
Some recent examples
The Municipal Council of New York has recently adopted a regulation authorizing the installation of surveillance cameras in the city’s schools. After consulting with the police services, the educational authorities will proceed with installing cameras “in every appropriate place” in order to ensure security. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU/ANYLC) has reacted by recalling the words of the director of security services of the Department of Education, who would himself have recognized that it was not self-evident that these cameras by themselves alone contributed to reinforcing safety in schools. This association has also observed that placing students under video surveillance leaves the impression that school is from now on a potential place of criminal acts, rather than a learning community whose members have to learn how to resolve conflicts. NYCLU specifies, on the other hand, that the installation and servicing of only ten of these cameras will involve the expenditure of $750,000, an estimation made from the maintenance costs that will follow.
In France, the Lycée Montaury, in Nîmes, has a project for equipping the lycée with a video security system. The administration first consulted parents and teachers in order to access their reception of the project. The former showed themselves to be 84% in favour and the latter 87%. in favour.
In England, surveillance of criminals on bail by means of electronic bracelets will be extended to adolescents between 12 and 15 years old who are repeat offenders and who are awaiting judgment. This measure will, amongst other things, permit verification of whether the minors are at home during the curfew imposed on them. It is not impossible to think that this measure would eventually be extended to schools in a country where absenteeism gives rise to severe penalties imposed on parents.
In Japan, a school in Osaka has provided students with RFID microchips. Slid into the children’s satchels or clothing, these little informers will permit children to be tracked “thanks to the RFID readers learnedly distributed within the establishment”. A gold mind from the perspective of Applied Digital Solutions, who makes the chips.
If these means of distance surveillance appear, in the eyes of some, to impose a measure of preventative security, their growing installation in a number of establishments encourages serious reflection about the objectives of education. For there is a very real risk that this might get out of hand, by seeing a child as a potential delinquent, or by introducing a law for everyone under the politics of regulating the breaches of conduct of a minority. Educational surveillance or abusive control?
References
“Big Brother” in the Schools”
http://www.nyclu.org/school_surv_cameras_oped_112304.html
“Big brother is watching you!!!”
http://souriez.info/article.php3?id_article=140
“Si jeunes et déjà pistés”
http://svmblogs.vnunet.fr/svm/futur/
“Glasgow to tag anti-social kids to cut offending”
http://www.parapolitics.info/phorum/read.php?f=35&i=364&t=351
“Les puces RFID s’implantent chez les patients américains”
http://www.01net.com/article/254525.html
“Angleterre : une femme condamnée pour l'absentéisme scolaire de ses enfants ! ”
http://www.droitsenfant.com/archivesactu3.htm
“Student info just a click away”
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041008/NEWS02/410080306/1004
Image : from the Website Ni dieu ni maître
http://www.ni-dieu-ni-maitre.org/?tag=ecole
