Chinese schools adopt smart uniforms to track students

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More than 10 schools in southwest China's Guizhou Province and its neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have adopted "smart" school uniforms to trace the whereabouts of students.

These uniforms are used as a way to prevent students from skipping classes and increase school attendance.

With two embedded chips, this kind of uniform is able to monitor the location of students and accurately record when they enter and exit from school.

That information will be automatically sent to teachers and parents. Parents can also find out students' performance and school's important notifications at any time through the app connected to the uniform chips.

"When students enter the school, the smart uniforms help take a photo or video of them," Ran Ruxiang, an elementary school principal in Guizhou Province told AFP.

Ran said that his school has started rolling out smart uniforms since last November and now more than half of the school's 1,400 students are wearing them.

Chinese schools use smart uniforms to monitor students' attendance. /VCG Photo

Guizhou Guanyu Technology Company spent more than two years in developing the technology behind smart uniforms and the first generation of the uniform is rolled out in July, 2017.

According to the company, the smart chips which have the ability to endure 500 washes and temperatures up to 150 degrees Celsius.

Coupled with facial recognition devices installed on school doors, an automatic voice alarm will ring if students swap uniforms.

When students wearing smart uniforms try to leave the school without permission, the alarm is also activated.

Considering possible privacy concerns involved in smart uniforms, Lin Zongwu, a school principal in Guizhou Province told the Global Times, "We choose not to check the accurate location of students after school, but when the student is missing and skipping classes, the uniforms help locate them."

(Top image via VCG)