I have been using the iOS7 beta since it came out, and before doing this, it had asked me for permission. This is opt-in, so if you don't like it you don't have to use it.
I'm not familiar with and female design groups, but if you are hiring a developer for example, you could advertise to one of the many female tech/programming groups that exist, while at the same time searching for an equal amount of male candidates. Or he could recruit by going along with his plan at the university, but instead setting a personal goal to reach out to an equal number of males and females, and not just saying "women only, sorry". Work on getting an equal number of applicants, then ignore their gender and only choose them based on their experience/education.
Forcing diversity doesn't work. They should instead find out how to get more minorities etc to apply in the first place to be considered equally with other candidates, without their applications being weighted over the others. Hiring based on experience no matter what gender or race you are, and becoming more diverse due to that, is better than discriminating against others for the sake of diversity.
The problem is that this is discriminatory. If you are not hiring based solely on qualifications, and instead on gender, it is discriminating. If you were to switch the genders and say that you are only hiring men, it would be clearly sexist. However, if you do not accept well qualified men who would fit the job, it is seen as "breaking gender barriers". You should be hiring based on the applicant's experience, education, and how they fit in with company culture.
If you are worried about a gender gap, you should be looking at why fewer females apply. Once you remedy this, you will be able to consider an equal amount of applicants, and you should then choose them based on their experience instead of their gender. The title of this article makes it out as if people are trying to stop you from hiring women, when in fact, you are instead trying to justify discrimination.
The fact that a lineup of white male speakers (because a majority of programmers are male) automatically makes you think that it is an intentional act by the event organizers to discriminate against women/minorities is foolish and offensive. This is similar to I believe a couple summers ago when Square had their summer intern program going, and all of the interns were male (because no females applied) and Jack Dorsey was attacked on Twitter for it. Square did not discriminate against people, but of course people leap to turning these people into the villain instead of thinking that it may be possible that no qualified minorities/women were able to speak at the conference for one reason or another. The organizer of this event is right to ignore this straw-man argument of trying to call him a racist/sexist because he knows that the allegation is ridiculous.
"Employers who do this are being just as antisocial and psychopathic as this school district"
Because using rfid badges to unlock doors at an office building/control and log access to server rooms, etc is a psychopathic and antisocial thing to do
I agree that the laws shouldn't be as crazy as they are now, but why make it harder to catch file-sharers? It's illegal to share stuff like this, and I don't see any justifiable reason why this shouldn't be illegal. However, it should be a small fine in my opinion, and it's a waste of time to break down the doors of these people downloading music unless they are making a ton of money by selling this pirated content.
Did her FOIA request involve the serial numbers of the IDs? Or just a request for all the students in the school? The article doesn't specify. RT is a hugely biased news source that tries anything to get bad press on the US, so I don't trust it as a reliable source.
How is this tracking? It's an rfid tag with the serial number on it so that they can scan it to bring up the person in their computer system to do things like pay for lunch, vote in student elections, and scan them when entering a classroom for attendance. I seriously don't understand how this is an evil tracking microchip. Most companies already use these for building access, so I don't see why using it for simple things at school is insane; it isn't a GPS chip, it just gives a serial number when scanned... this isn't some kind of dangerous chip.
This information is public. You put it on the internet. They are not taking pictures of you without your consent, you already uploaded photos of yourself for the world to see. In my eyes, this is not a privacy issue.