School Surveillance

By: Yo Kamiya

In Gilliom and Monohan’s Supervision, the authors discuss how surveillance practices are increasingly being used in many dimensions of our lives. Defined as any form of “monitoring people in order to regulate or govern their behavior,” surveillance practices have permeated throughout all facets of our society as a means of efficient data accumulation and governance.

In recent news, a San Antonio school district has attempted to tackle issues regarding truancy by requiring students to wear identification cards imbedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tracking devices. In addition to the 290 surveillance cameras belonging to the school district, the “tags produce a radio signal that is tied to the students’ Social Security numbers, allowing the wearer's precise movements to be constantly monitored.” However, in contrast to the original mission of preventing truancy and keeping kids on campus, the school suspended students who refused to wear their ID cards. According to school administration, the goal of the “Student Locater Program” was not only to keep students from cutting class, but also to raise revenue. Although the implementation of the system cost a substantial amount of resources, it will allow the school to increase attendance numbers and qualify for a government grant of $1.7 million. By “using the devices to account for the students' whereabouts on campus, whether in class or not, school administrators can ‘count’ students as being ‘in school’ and thereby qualify for up to $1.7 million in funding from the state government”. Naturally, this created uproar against the schools implementation of RFID devices and raised the question of whether or not such practices are actually being enforced for the benefit and safety of students or the desire of school administration and an expanding surveillance industry to make a quick buck at the expense of student privacy.

One can argue that the accumulated funds will benefit students by enabling the school to improve the quality of education. However, it is clear in the suspension of students who resist surveillance that the administration is not very concerned with student access to quality academic resources.  Instead, the event seems to be an example of corporate and academic institutions attempting to make a profit under the guise of student safety and anti-truancy measures.

Although this sort of profit driven behavior can be expected from the corporation developing such surveillance technology, it is a bit surprising to see such cooperation from the school district.  Instead of showing the concern for student privacy, “school officials have actually gone so far as to offer gift cards, pizza parties and raffle prizes to classes with the highest ID badge participation rates”. The contrast between the rewarding of students who participate in the school profit driven program and the exclusion of those who do not makes one question what the mission of academic institutions really is.