Making kids grow up fast

I watch digital identity for fun (not profit, at least by trend) and take notice of interesting news. Here's an interesting item from two perspectives.

First, technology gets taken up and used in ways that may not be especially obvious to those who introduce them. I think its satisfactorily true that innovations are shaped by the people upon whom they are foisted: "you think we want this, but we'll use it like this for that." As the Globe and Mail article linked below shows, public schools are using security passes as a means to both protect property and children. Frankly, given the relative ease that perverts and other malcontents have in abducting children from around schoolyards, I applaud the initiative.

Second, you can count on somebody taking issue with anything that veers from the status quo. An excerpt from the story, entitled Schools resorting to ID cards after thefts:

"But civil libertarians say that forcing students to wear identification in school and even having video cameras watch them will make teenagers feel like criminals.
'We believe that schools are academies and places of learning, and with the recent trends of invading students' privacy . . ., the academy is starting to look more like a reformatory,' said Kirk Tousaw of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association."

I have to work in a building that requires a security badge -- as do most of the people I know. When I go through an airport, I practically have to keep my ID visible (and it's only a matter of time before . . .). Although I may feel like a prisoner in my cube, I'm not. So, boys and girls, OR BUSYBODIES SPEAKING ON THEIR BEHALF, welcome to the new millennium.

Posted by Grayson at January 20, 2004 12:57 PM