Georgia - The Chattooga County School District has signed a five-year contract to use StudentConnect, a product that lets school districts and parents track students using ID cards that contain radio frequency identification device (RFID) chips. The program will be free of charge to the school system and optional for parents."The service is offered free of charge to the school system", said Kayode "Kay" Aladesuyi, chairman and CEO of East Coast Diversified Corp., the holding company that owns StudentConnect.
Using the RFID badges is not being sold at cost to parents, however, it is being given away for free. It will know when and where students get on and off the bus and notify the bus drivers if a student gets on the wrong bus or fails to get off the bus."StudentConnect plans to make money through advertising that will show up on parents' smartphones along with text messages or email notifications of their children's whereabouts."
© The Rundown Live
"StudentConnect can afford to provide the service at no charge", Aladesuyi said, "because of its potential to deliver a market of grateful parents to advertisers who can send their message to a focused area".The power to collect meta data and track individual children everywhere has raised privacy concerns among parents including who would have access to this information.
"The first thing [parents] see is Junior has been dropped off safely at home," he said. "This safety message brought to you by Coca-Cola."
The system doesn't compromise students' privacy, Aladesuyi said, because they're identified by a 13-digit number that's meaningless until it's matched with student information in a school database.
© The Rundown Live
© The Rundown Live
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter