Co-op News Article

This is my first post for the blog, and I will be responding to a news article I read from the Kansas City Star. This article shares a new electronic registering system to help monitor children in the Head Start program. Preschool children.

Basically, the system installs computers with the technology to track small locator devices that the children keep in a zip up pocket on their jacket. The children then appear on the screen as moving dots. The dots will change to orange or red, depending on how far they are from where they should be.

This sounds safe enough, especially when we are assured that no personal information is saved other than the child's name. The locators are also cleared every night at midnight. After a bit more extensive research, however; my opinions of this technology became a bit more adversarial.

The first major problem we see arise is the range these locators possess. They are capable of being detected from distances of up to 100 yards away. This fact is made only more threatening by the fact that anyone with the right motives could build, for something around $250, their own monitor to detect the locators. This offers a dangerous potential tool for those seeking to harm children. There is also no way of knowing who's looking at those moving dots, or where from. The notion that criminals could use this technology against itself from anywhere in a 100 yard radius is a bit unnerving, to say the least.

The second problem is with the devices themselves. They are expected to remain in the pocket of curious, naive preschoolers for the entire educational day. I don't know about you, but when I was that age, a strange, flashy device in my pocket would have been the most interesting thing to take out of my pocket. And as a small child with rapidly changing interests, this device would quickly end up on the floor or on some shelf. To the observing monitors, it would appear that children are safe, but this could easily lead the staff in charge of the screen into a false sense of security.

This technology was originally used to maintain packages in large shipping companies, or other jobs similar to that. While it is a good idea at first glance, perhaps it should remain in use with inanimate objects, rather than in the pocket of a small child. With taxes already on an unhealthy rise and an economy on an unhealthy decline, the $50,000 federal grant could be much better spent where it's not putting preschoolers at risks for safety.