In California, Student Tracking Program Falls Apart as Vendor Backs Out

The Sutter County school that required students to wear identification badges that tracked their movement on campus stopped the controversial program Tuesday night when the creators of the technology abruptly pulled the plug on the deal.

Brittan Elementary, a K-8 school west of Yuba City, got the badges for free from InCom, a small Sutter City start-up whose owners have ties to the school district. Brittan's seventh- and eighth-graders had been required to wear badges with the technology -- called RFID, or radio frequency identification devices -- on lanyards around their necks, and school officials said the badges were scanned and used to take attendance easily.

But some parents were outraged that the badges were given to children without their knowledge or consent. The American Civil Liberties Union publicized the concerns, and before long, news crews from Germany and elsewhere arrived at the 600-student campus.

School officials stressed Wednesday that it was the company -- not the district -- that decided to terminate the badges.

"Some parents were dead set against it, and they were going to make sure that no one would benefit from this technology," said Paul Nicholas Boylan, the school district's general counsel.

Michele Tatro, whose daughter Lauren is in eighth grade, attended Tuesday night's school board meeting prepared for a heated debate about the issues.

"We went into the meeting totally expecting that the school district would say `OK, we're just going to do voluntary badges,' " said Tatro. "We were happily shocked when the company said they were going to pull out."

InCom's close ties to local school officials immediately raised red flags about profit motive and conflict of interest. The company's founders, Michael Dobson and Doug Ahlers, both work in local schools. Dobson is a network administrator for the district, and Ahlers is a graphics and animation teacher at nearby Sutter Union High School.

Ahlers surprised the crowd Tuesday night by reading a brief statement announcing that InCom was discontinuing the program, then left the building. He did not return a request for comment Wednesday.

"This school district never should have been in the business of selling its students' privacy and security," said Nicole Ozer, the ACLU's Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director.