Like an ankle monitor in your pocket

from here

I can't get over how carceral the policies about this college's mandatory tracking app are. It really does seem like the students are being voluntold to submit to house arrest at the college, and the app is a technical control that helps enforce that.

I understand there are concerns about COVID-19 and re-opening the school, but there are more privacy-friendly ways, and heck maybe it would be better if the school didn't re-open and went online instead.

I am curious what the school administration would do if a student said they didn't have a phone. Would they buy the student a phone? Probably not. They want the features of an ankle monitoring without having to pay for the hardware or infrastructure so they offload that cost onto the students. It's like the gig economy (exploitative as that is) but for hardware.