A private school’s move to introduce an electronic students tracking system has evoked concern among parents. A number of parents of students at Doha Modern Indian School (DMIS) met officials of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education yesterday to express their distress over the issue.

Parents have raised concern over issues ranging from violation of human rights, to infringement of privacy to health risks associated with the new surveillance system. With acute shortage of seats in Indian schools, parents have found themselves forced to pay for the new identification tag, which cost QR1,200 per child a year.

DMIS has made it mandatory for all the students to have the rather pricey tags, Student Tracking and Ridership Solution (STRS) based on Bluetooth technology with real time visibility at its campus.
STRS makes use of Bluetooth Low Energy Technology which involves short range transmission to communicate between various electronic devices like identification tags used by students and Bluetooth beacons hosted at the school and in buses.

“The tracking system will help monitor the students right from their boarding station. The RFID student tracking system in buses helps to check if the child is entering the right bus and getting off at the right stop. Within the school, the system will mark entry of each student, and detect if students are elsewhere on the campus, when classes are going on,” an official told The Peninsula.

“Our main focus is students’ safety and the system will help remove human errors. There are incidences, when students take a different bus to a different destination, or they hide to skip the classes. These incidences can be avoided with the new system in place. It will give both the parents and school real time information about whether the child has reached school or home safely,” he added.

However, a number of parents have voiced their concerns on having a radio-wave technology based surveillance system, that too at expensive rates jeopardising students’ privacy. Parents have been forced to pay QR1,200 per year for each child, they say.

“They are trying to impose the card on each and every students. What if a student disengages the chip and keeps it elsewhere? If safety is their actual concern, the school should have checked with the parents first. Also, the card is rather pricey and parents will have to pay for this yearly or in case of any damage or loss,” said the mother of a former DMIS student.

Use of micro-wave frequency for monitoring the children causes health hazard, according to some of them.
“The school says that the system is a low energy technology. However, this micro-wave frequency can cause health hazards. Added to this they are monitoring every movement of the students, which is a violation of individual’s privacy,” said a father, whose two children are studying in DMIS.

“The new system is like putting our children in a low power micro-wave oven for more than 6 hours. This is something we haven’t heard anywhere else in the world, and is hazardous to health,” said Mohammed Riyas, who has two children in the school.

The school has kindergarten classes which accommodate children as young as three-and-a-half years of age.
“Health experts always say that these young children should be kept away from any kinds of radiations or micro-wave. Here they are put in continuous radiation hours at a time, which surely pose health risk,” he said.

Similar concern was voiced by another parent who is involved in occupational health in a major company in Qatar. “Moves to implement similar surveillance in different countries have been dropped due to various health and privacy issues. The school says that the system will help monitor toilet frequency, which personally is a human right violation. We had contacted the ministry officials who told us that the school presentation about the project did not show any possible health risks and hence a green signal to start the new system was given,” said Mohammed, another concerned parent.

According to some parents, the school already has enough security measures in place.
“They have surveillance cameras and enough security personnel throughout the facility, so why is there a need for additional monitoring? Only tracking in buses is currently needed. This is merely another ploy to impose additional fee of QR1,200 yearly on parents,” said another parent.