According to the "Undernews" who in turn link to a CNET article Japanese schools are beginning to use Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags to track children. Ironically, I'm one of the people who helped in a small way to develop systems to track cattle in the same way. The cattle wear the tags in their ear usually, maybe the kids will come to enjoy new RFID earrings? Maybe noserings? But according to CNET Asia the current practice is a little less intrusive.
"The chips will be put onto kids' schoolbags, name tags or clothing in one Wakayama prefecture school. Denmark's Legoland introduced a similar scheme last month to stop young children going astray.UNDERNEWS: JAPANESE SCHOOL CHILDREN TO BE TAGGED LIKE CATTLE Posted by bill at July 13, 2004 05:19 PM