RFID Watches Over School Kids in Japan

The system can also be set up to notify parents or guardians automatically via e-mail on a cellular phone or PC if a child passes a specific Wi-Fi access point on the way to or from school. If a child presses the tag's call button, the system will send parents an e-mail message to their cellular phone or PC, notifying them that their child needs assistance. The parents will also receive an image on the phone screen of a map showing where the child is.

The tags do not carry any information about the child, says AeroScout's director of marketing, Josh Slobin. Instead, the only information on the tag is its specific MAC address, a unique ID code used to identify networked devices. The NTT-run database contains data related to that address, such as the wearer's name, home address, parents and phone number.

"The information about the child resides on the software side of the system. There is no data being transmitted that is potentially insecure," Slobin says. That means no one could access the child's name or other personal information simply by using an RFID interrogator to capture the tag's data.

There has been a growing interest in child security in Japan, where most children make their way to school without a parent, and where there has been a series of recent crimes against children while in transit to school.

"Success for us would be to increase public confidence in their children's safety in Japan," Slobin explains. He says the system, thus far, has generated considerable excitement in Japan, with six television studios filming the early days of the trial. Slobin says he hopes the trial will prove that such an RFID solution could improve children's safety.

The participating companies say they plan to expand the detection range of the tags and adjust the system to respond to increased car speeds based on the test results. NTT Data is responsible for the overall coordination and system development; Its Communications Inc., for the provisioning of the network infrastructure, including wireless LAN-based transceiver stations; Trendy, for the system development and operation; and Tokyo Security, for the deployment of security guards to assist in community patrolling, and to go to locations whenever there is trouble.

AeroScout hopes to see the system in use at other school districts in Japan, and then worldwide once the trial has completed.