U.S. School District Plans to Surveil Students With Bluetooth Tracking Devices to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19
A school district in New Albany, Ohio, is planning to combat the spread of COVID-19 when school returns in August by surveilling its students, according to a report by Wired.
According to the tech magazine, students will be required to wear bluetooth tracking devices developed by Volan that will monitor them wherever they go throughout the school day and send alerts in emergency situations.
Here’s more from the report:
The school district, with five schools and 4,800 students, plans to test a system that would require each student to wear an electronic beacon to track their location to within a few feet throughout the day. It will record where students sit in each classroom, show who they meet and talk to, and reveal how they gather in groups. The hope is such technology could prevent or minimize an outbreak of Covid-19, the deadly respiratory disease at the center of a global pandemic.
“We are very much interested in the automated tracking of students,” Michael Sawyers, the district superintendent for New Albany-Plain Schools, told Wired. Sawyers reportedly believes that the technology will enable school officials to determine if social distancing practices are being followed and pinpoint at-risk individuals should someone in the district test positive for the virus. (Read more from “U.S. School District Plans to Surveil Students With Bluetooth Tracking Devices to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19” HERE)
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