Texas Lawmaker proposes bill to stop use of RFID chips
One Texas lawmaker thinks keeping tabs on your kids at school with ID cards that have RFID technology is a bad idea. State Senator Craig Estes from Wichita Falls, TX has filed a bill in Austin that prohibits the use of these chips in ID cards on school grounds.
“When it came to my attention that schools were doing this my first thought was ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ This technology is very impressive and very new, but it is used to track cattle,” Estes told KTRH.
San Antonio's Northside ISD says they use the cards to make sure your kids our safe. But Estes disagrees.
“Our children are not products. Our children are not livestock. They’re not cattle. I think it’s insecure. I think it violates our children’s freedom,” Estes explained.
Northside I-S-D spokesman Pascual Gonzalez told KTRH the Senator is wrong.
“He really does not understand the way the program works. It is not a tracking technology. It is a locating technology. When there is an emergency in the school it allows us to find our students,” Gonzalez explained during an interview with KTRH.
Rocky Rhodes of the South Texas College of Law says the schools may be in the right here.
“Privacy rights are diminished when you are talking about somebody on school grounds,” Rhodes told KTRH. “It’s necessary in order to protect the students to be able to know where they are.”
The Northside ISD is involved in a legal fight over the use of the technology. One student, Andrea Hernandez, has refused to use the card based in part on religious beliefs. A federal judge last week ruled against her and her family.
