Brittan Elementary School near Yuba City is the first in California to make some of its students wear ID badges equipped with a new technology capable of tracking their movement on campus.

The badges contain an RFID transmitter that reads a student's name, photo, grade level, and the date and time of when the badge was scanned. The data is then delivered to teachers with handheld computers. The school claims this was done to make taking attendance much easier.

"I never heard of RFID until my kid came home wearing it," said Michele Tatro, whose daughter Lauren, 13, is in eighth grade. "They use this to track missing pets, not children. It's creepy, Big Brother and Orwellian."

Tatro said kids now walk to and from school wearing the badges -- which are scanned as they walk through classroom doors and include photographs, names and grade level -- on lanyards around their necks. She's worried that sexual predators could read the badges and be able to call out to students by name.

My take on this is that this technology will definitely yield benefits to school faculty. They'll now have a history of data on when students entered and left school grounds on what dates and at what times.

But when the benefits become clear, I feel schools will expand the use of RFID to other places. For example, they'll hook up receivers in places where kids are not supposed to go, and also in restrooms. Yes, restrooms. That's where many fights and drug deals take place. Of course, students will be smart enough to remove their badges before conducting any kind of illegal acts.

And teachers will be next. This sort of "people tracking" takes place already in many high-tech companies. I worked at a software company that had defense contracts. We were required to slide our badges in and out of a barcode reader everytime we entered and exited the building, and that even included trips to the restroom. So don't think that this kind of tracking won't happen.