At ISTE this year participants were given 'smart badges' - these tracked your movements and after the conference will provide participants with a report "listing of all the sessions you attended and links to any digital resources the session offered." More importantly, ISTE itself was provided "with information on session attendance and traffic flow in the expo hall and other open spaces, including playgrounds and poster sessions." Well, "ISTE calls this 'personalized learning,'" writes Audrey Watters. "I call it surveillance pedagogy and an act of violence against women just waiting to happen." Doug Levin took one apart and from the data inside found a user manual for the surveillance tags. In a follow-up post Levin serached for tag readers and found not only them but also surveillance cameras placed unobtrusively next to them. "I've made sure to keep my references to the ISTE 'smart badge' in quotes," writes Levin. "It is not smart. It is a Bluetooth location tracker – commonly used to locate lost cats, keys, and luggage – branded with words that connote innovation and trendiness and hence make it socially acceptable to track people."
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