‘Safe use of technology – Your guide’ a new video by WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA)

‘Safe use of technology – Your guide’ a new video by WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA)

Excerpt

A notice from WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA):

‘Safe use of technology – Your guide’ a new video by WiFi in Schools Australia (WISA) published 12 December 2014 

The video raises awareness on the new recommendations from the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) for the safe use of wireless radiation emitting devices. Since these recommendations have not yet been made publicly available to students and parents, WISA have produced this short informative video on DETE’s publications.

DETE’s ICT Policy now puts the responsibility of ensuring the safe use of wireless devices (tablets, laptops etc) onto principals, who in turn, have to ensure that parents and students acknowledge the correct usage according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. 

Parents from WISA raised wireless radiation safety concerns with DETE continually over the last two years – urging DETE to seriously consider the potential long-term health risks to children, future legal ramifications, and the need to reduce unnecessary exposure. As a minimum precautionary measure, parents from WISA have been calling for DETE to educate students and staff on the safe use of WiFi enabled devices and to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines.

In passing the responsibility onto parents and students, DETE is covering their legal liability for student use of wireless devices. Their installation of wireless access points may meet current standards for individual devices based on the current thermal based standard. However, who is going to be held responsible for ignoring the impact of multiple devices (30+ laptops and tablets in a classroom + mobile phones + WiFi access points) and the cumulative effect of simultaneous use of all these devices over the duration of a student’s school life?

The Australian standards that are being applied to classrooms were developed for individual Radio Frequency (wireless radiation emitting) devices. More importantly, these standards are based solely on short-term heating of body tissue. They do not take into account any biological effects that may occur from prolonged or cumulative low-level wireless radiation exposure.

SNIP

Read the post here.