Washington school gives kids Covid ankle monitors, parents say 'it's for criminals'
Eatonville High School was slammed for requiring student athletes to wear ankle bracelets to aid Covid-19 tracking and tracing operations
Aug 24, 2021
A public high school in Washington state has been chastised for requiring student athletes to wear ankle bracelets to aid Covid-19 tracking and tracing operations, news outlets reported on Tuesday, August 23. Eatonville High School is employing taxpayer-funded ankle monitors to follow student athletes. However, not all parents are said to have approved of the action.
The 'TraceTag' features visual and auditory sensors that notify children when they get too close to one another, as well as contact-trace data that may be utilized to determine which students have had contact with other players who have tested positive for Covid-19, the Daily Mail reported. As a result, TraceTag might be deployed to notify a student if they've been in close contact with someone infected with the virus.
The device can be worn in the body or affixed to a hat or helmet, according to the manufacturer's website. At Eatonville, all vaccinated and unvaccinated kids must wear the devices, but only unvaccinated pupils must quarantine for 14 days if a positive case of Covid-19 is discovered in the contact-trace data. The gadget, which was designed to collect contact-trace data in the event of Covid-19 infections, is compared to ankle monitors worn by people on house arrest.
“If a student or coach tests positive, we will have immediate information regarding athletes’ and coaches’ contacts, so we can more tightly determine who might need to quarantine,” the district said in an emailed statement, according to Mynorthwest.com. “Athletes and coaches not in contact with the player who tested positive can continue to participate in the sport," it adds.
While the school claims to have informed parents and obtained their approval to use the surveillance devices, not all parents were aware of this. One mother told the Post Millennial that she was not notified and that she did not sign any consent forms. According to the website, mum stated that the school's athletic director admitted to a "screw up" in not initially obtaining her consent.
https://meaww.com/washington-school-slammed-for-making-student-athletes-wear-ankle-monitors-for-covid-alert