http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55923-2001Oct1.html
High-Tech
IDs Have No Place In D.C. Schools
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By Marc Fisher
Tuesday, October 2, 2001; Page B01
Now the District proposes to take digital photographs and fingerprints of
all its children, issue every child a bar-coded ID card, and store the
information in the trusty hands of the Motor Vehicles Department.
All in the name of security, of course. We're told that the information
would come in handy to keep tabs on social services provided to low-income kids
and to help search for missing children.
Pretty much anything is justified by the magical word "security"
these days. Yet an Associated Press survey recently (but before the Sept. 11
attacks) reported that eight in 10 American adults believe the schools in their
community are safe. So where is the impetus for this ID tagging program? Well,
it turns out that folks at the company that sells the technology, Polaroid ID
Systems, proposed the idea. Wasn't that nice of them?
The reaction, after my colleague Robert O'Harrow Jr. reported the plan, was
mixed. Some people grasp at anything that purports to keep kids safe. Others
spoke darkly of Big Brother coming to the city's schools.
I have news for you: He's been enrolled in the D.C. schools for quite a
while.
Some time ago, I had the honor of meeting schools security chief Patrick
Fiel, who proudly showed me how he can fire up his desktop computer and peer
into doorways, halls and even bathrooms of dozens of schools. "Even from
home, I can look at 26 of my schools online," he boasts.
With the help of Be There software -- password protected, of course -- the
D.C. schools have become the first in the nation to monitor children wherever
they may be on campus. Fiel said the system would be in 72 schools by this
fall.
"A lot of people think of Big Brother," Fiel concedes. "But
this is about keeping kids safe." Last school year, the system helped
security officers make 30 felony arrests, as students were caught on camera
setting fires, stealing cars and making bomb threats. Fiel also credits the
cameras with debunking phony liability claims, as stories of injuries suffered
inside schools can now be checked against digital video archives.
The cameras certainly help security officers manage sprawling high school
buildings; Dunbar High, for example, has 128 entry points, but only five
officers. With cameras, all doors are watched. (Fiel considers the program a
bargain: At brand-new J.F. Oyster Bilingual Elementary in Woodley Park, a
$40,000 camera system monitors not only hallways and doors, but also fire
alarms and boilers, so workers need not check systems each night.)
"Remember, this was a dysfunctional school system," Fiel says.
"This program permits principals to gain control of their buildings."
He notes that the cameras are in plain view and that both students and faculty
know about them.
Principals tend to like the cameras. Principals can sit in their offices,
surf to the right Internet site, see who's hanging in the hallway, get on the intercom
and summon the offenders.
I suppose they could also get up from their desks and go talk to the
students, but that would be so low-tech.
The problem with assembling a digital file detailing the lives of every
child in the city is not the invasion of privacy -- after all, any school
already, and properly, has key information about its students -- but the
assertion of control by the government.
In Virginia, the candidates for governor are sparring over whether to take
DNA samples from all arrested citizens; DNA sampling is simply the new version
of fingerprinting, and when you've been arrested, you lose some of your
privacy.
But going to school should not bring an accusation of criminal behavior.
Children deserve to be considered innocent; they should not be required to wear
ID tags or submit to digital fingerprinting. That should become clear at
tomorrow's D.C. Council hearing on the ID card plan.
Intrusive security measures make a powerful statement about the state's
opinion of its citizens, and D.C. students need protection from the city's dim
view of its children.
This is one Polaroid that shouldn't develop.
E-mail: marcfisher@washpost.com
© 2001
The Washington Post Company
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