Texas Student Refuses Tracking Tag, Battles School Officials
Andrea Hernandez objects on privacy, religious grounds
2:30 p.m. PST UPDATE: A local Texas judge on Wednesday tentatively blocked the suspension, pending further hearings next week.
A Texas high school student is being suspended for refusing to wear a student ID card implanted with a radio-frequency identification chip.
Northside Independent School District in San Antonio began issuing the RFID-chip-laden student-body cards when the semester began in the fall. The ID badge has a bar code associated with a student's Social Security number, and the RFID chip monitors pupils' movements on campus, from when they arrive until when they leave.
Radio-frequency identification devices are a daily part of the electronic age — found in passports, and library and payment cards. Eventually they're expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. Now schools across the nation are slowly adopting them as well.
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