Dennis on Data Forensics

The ACLU is opposing a pilot project in Rhode Island to track students as they enter and exit school buses. “Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, [called] the plan ‘a solution in search of a problem’ and saying the school district already should have procedures in place to track where its students are.” “There’s absolutely no need to be tagging children,” he said. “The program raises enormous privacy and safety concerns, he added.”

If my research is accurate, there have been at least four previous projects for tagging children in schools with RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips in the United States:

1. Enterprise Charter School, Buffalo, New York (2003) – badges on children, tagging library books, school cafeteria purchases, and visits to the school nurse;
2. Spring Independent School District, Houston, Texas (2004) – school bus pass program that is still operational;
3. Brittany Elementary School, Sutton, California (2005) – badges on children, due to public outcry this project was cancelled which lead to the Senate of the State of California debated banning RFID chips to identify people in the state; and
4. Tucson Unified School District, Tucson, Arizona (2007?) – school bus pass program that may still be under discussion.

In the UK, two clothing manufacturers are sewing RFID tags into school uniforms for the express purpose of tracking students while they are in school. RFID tags sewn into clothing are not new, and neither are RFID badges in the work place. And, now RFID badges are being used in universities. The University of Chicago is revamping all their student id cards primarily to ensure secure building access. Another application of RFID technology is a label affixed to your cell phone at Slippery Rock University, north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which allows for payment processing.

The idea of chipping children is controversial. On one hand, privacy advocates warn of possible abuses and intrusions. On the other, security proponents promote increased safety. In between are administrators who want improved efficiency and convenience. No one is seriously considering implanting RFID chips into children yet. But, this is happening for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia, as well as being seriously considered by the British government for prisoners. And, the University of Washington has started a human experiment in the computer science building to assess the possibilities of RFID tracking. Several states have passed legislation prohibiting a person from being forced to accept RFID implants, which are approved by the FDA. (Image source.)

There is no doubt that RFID tags can be abused. With an RFID reader, a bad person can gather information about you surreptitiously. A bad person with a database can profile you, and even create an inventory of your belongings. But this potential exists today, even without ubiquitous RFID tags and readers. Bad people with cameras can gather information about you surreptitiously and create an inventory of your belongings. They do it to children, families and the elderly. The concern about RFID is that this can be done more efficiently. If you use membership cards and discount shopping cards, your purchases may already be tied to you in some database, somewhere, that at sometime in the future may be hacked by someone. To a certain degree, the anti-RFID movement promotes the fear that at some time your information will be stolen.

We should be aware that the school district personnel who are investigating this technology are trying to solve real problems. It’s important to keep track of library books. And, it’s even more important to know that students are entering and exiting the school buses at the proper times and locations. We live in a changing world and what we dismiss as paranoia today may become essential tomorrow. For example, there were no lockers in my elementary school. The first time I saw a locker was in junior high. While in high school, we moved to a small town and the lockers did not lock in that school (unless you brought your own lock from home). Given our changing world, I would be extremely surprised if this situation still exists in my alma mater.

I’m somewhat surprised that the ACLU has not opposed cell phones in schools. Who would have ever imagined that in the name of privacy and safety we would allow everyone to carry a camera to school and take a picture of anything there (e.g., students spitting in a teacher’s water bottle or a teacher filming the girls bathroom)? But that is precisely what has happened with cell phones. We can’t pry cell phones away from students. There is also great potential to abuse cell phones, as demonstrated with the FBI’s ability to remotely activate a cell phone’s microphone and use it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. If cell phones are ever fitted with RFID tags, this entire debate could be over.

Mr. Brown from the ACLU is right. There are safety and security concerns with RFID devices. However, he doesn’t seem to understand those concerns. RFID chips can be hacked and the information from those chips can be transferred to other chips. As an example if the RFID card allows access to a secured area, a bad person may pilfer the electronic codes and in essence make a copy of the electronic key, as demonstrated by James Van Bokkelen. If the chips do not have proper electronic safeguards the information may be overwritten or used illegitimately.

While I have not directly addressed testing, there are implications for using RFID chips in testing which I will discuss the next time I write. But today, I just couldn’t resist this topic. In my opinion, we need to ignore the fear mongering and we need to use this technology wisely. RFID technology is not a panacea, but it can solve real problems.

The State of Florida recently imposed a cell phone ban on students while taking the FCAT. All the parents of school children in the state received a letter explaining the ban. On the other hand, the Legislature in the State of Utah voted down a bill that would require school districts to establish policies governing cell phone use. The sponsoring legislator said, “[Cell phones] can be used to cheat. We’ve had inappropriate photos transmitted. The problem is pervasive.” An opposing legislator was quoted as saying that “he thinks electronic devices could be better used in education and wouldn’t necessarily like to see policies that simply prohibit them.”

In another story last week reported by Wave3 of Louisville, we read: “Teachers at Oldham County High say they’ve had problems with students using their cell phones to cheat in class. ‘I saw a boy texting under his desk during a test. Then I picked it up. Clear as day it said number five –D- and I took it to the office and we were able to trace the number and it was to another student in the same class,’ said Newkirk.” Now contrast that experience with this column from the Muskegon Chronicle, where the writer claims that gadgets don’t help cheaters. The following points were made:

1. Yet research indicates that cheating in high school and college isn’t any more common today than it was 30 years ago.
2. “And 99 percent of cheating is still done the old-fashioned way, like copying from a neighbor,” said Scott Gomer, media relations director for ACT,
3. But in her four years at Northview High School in Plainfield Township, Kelsey Perras has heard of someone pulling out a cell phone to take a picture of a test “only once,” she said.
4. “High-tech cheating isn’t really something you see a whole lot of,” said Hudsonville High senior Travis Martin. “Most people won’t pull out their cell phone during a test. It’s tough to make that discreet.”
5. Perras said cheaters at Northview are caught more often than not.

Muskegon must be a very sheltered place with extremely astute teachers. The credibility of each of the above statements is easily challenged. I see a lot of data and from what I see, I feel very confident in stating that cheaters are rarely caught. The only way that I can explain some of the cheating I see is through wireless communications. And, research from the Josephson Institute and Center for Academic Integrity convincingly shows that cheating in school is rising and has been rising for the last two decades.

Confusion concerning cell phones in schools is raging throughout the whole country. The issue is being intensely debated in New York City where it has spilled into the court system. Last spring the New York State Supreme Court upheld a ban on cell phones imposed by New York City in 2006. The Supreme Court decision is now being challenged in appellate court.

Surprisingly, security arguments are given by both sides of this debate. Proponents of cell phones argue that parents and administrators need constant contact with students, because without constant contact student security is jeopardized. Opponents of cell phones in schools cite privacy violations with videos posted on the Internet of students in restrooms and teachers disciplining students. And, of course, they do not overlook the implications of cheating. As reported by WSAZ, the solution at Marshall University has been to allow each instructor to determine in their course syllabus whether cell phones during tests are banned, but to not restrict cell phone use on campus.

Penn State has addressed the issue by creating secure testing environments, where the computers do not have Internet access and where cell phone transmissions are silenced. The technology they are using includes: secure workstations, cameras and monitors on every test taker, and metal-lined testing rooms (known as faraday cages) that passively prevent wireless communications. While this may seem extreme, contrast this with the exam breach of 2004 in South Korea where 314 test results were invalidated after police discovered answer keys being transmitted using text messaging. As another example, consider the January 2, 2008 report by the Boston Globe where firefighters in Boston sent text messages from the restroom to cheat on their exams.

It is clear that cell phones are used to surreptitiously cheat on tests. People, in general, feel strongly that cheating shouldn’t be tolerated on tests. We don’t want doctors, lawyers, nurses, accountants, firefighters, police or any other person who provides a service to us to be an incompetent, bumbling cheater. On the other hand, the public sentiment appears to be confused when it comes to setting aside the cell phone while an exam is being given. The public seems unwilling to restrict the individual privilege of being able to communicate with a child in school while taking a test in order to prevent cheating.

The principle of fairness and integrity dictates that students should have a level playing field. It is very difficult to convince me that the playing field was level when cheaters in China were caught with radio receivers in their shoes:

Police in Jiutai, in the northeastern province of Jilin, became suspicious when a mini-bus remained parked outside a school hosting the exam on Thursday, Xinhua said.

Inside, they found three people, “two of them staring at a computer screen and talking into a walkie-talkie,” Xinhua said.

A student in the examination hall used a wireless microphone to read out the questions and received the answers from the van; Xinhua quoted their confessions as saying.

Police had found some 42 pairs of so-called “cheating shoes” with transmitting and reception ability, selling for about 2,000 Yuan each, in a flat in Shenyang, the provincial capital, state media said on Thursday, adding that they — along with “cheating wallets” and hats — had proved popular this year.

There is no confusion in my mind on this issue. But, I’m just a statistician and who am I to know differently?