Location tracking can be done with a number of different technologies and for quite different purposes. An emerging practice, at least on some large college and university campuses seems to be the use of beacon technology to track the class attendance of athletes. These systems work by having athletes download an app onto their cell phones that works with beacons placed in classrooms to record their attendance when their phone enters the classroom.
Additional details on such attendance tracking systems are provided in an article in The Daily Tarheel at the University of North Carolina. As the article makes clear, not all students and faculty are comfortable with this automated tracking system. Some students view the system as an invasion of their privacy, and some faculty members see it as an intrusion into their classrooms.
The legal issues raised by this attempt at enhanced surveillance in classrooms are noted by a UNC law professor near the end of the article who points out that we currently lack a legal framework to consider the creeping growth of surveillance in universities. Such initiatives carry implications for the freedoms of both faculty and students and the overall configuration of learning environments.
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