Sao Paulo, Brazil: Brazilian city of Vitoria da Conquista made mandatory to wear radio frequency sensor (RFID) embedded uniforms to school students. Such uniforms send alerts to parents if their children bunk classes. In total, city officials have spent USD 670,000 to design, test and manufacture the high-tech uniform.
Speaking to Associated Press, the city’s education secretary, Coriolano Moraes said, “Twenty thousand students in 25 of Vitoria da Conquista’s 213 public schools have started using T-shirts with locator embedded chips. By 2013, all of the city’s 43,000 public school students, aged 4 to 14, will be using the chip-embedded uniforms.”
The uniforms work similarly to the tracking devices sometimes used to locate lost pets. A chip that’s built into the clothing provides data to a central computer programmed to send updates to parents about their child’s whereabouts via text messaging. So whenever the child enters the school, it instantly sends confirmation of the arrival. And if the kid doesn’t show up within 20 minutes after classes start, parents will receive an alert that says, ”Your child has still not arrived at school.”
If a student skips classes three times parents will be asked to explain the absences. If they fail to do so, the school may notify authorities, Moares added. The locator chips are designed with an anti-tampering security system. Therefore, the shirts can be washed, ironed and re-worn without being damaged.
Source: Associated Press
