MIDDLETOWN — The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union is calling on the Middletown School Department to drop its planned pilot program of a student-tracking system that the ACLU says would treat children like “cattle” and violate their privacy.

The school district this month will test the Mobile Accountability Program, or MAP, which will place GPS tracking devices in two school buses and attach radio-frequency identification labels to the backpacks of the 80 or so Aquidneck Elementary School students who ride those buses. School administrators will then be able to monitor — in real-time, via an online map of Middletown at MAPIT’s secure Web site — the progress of those buses and their passengers as the children enter and exit the buses.

MAP is designed to improve transportation safety and efficiency and the pilot would last for the rest of the school year, after which school officials will determine whether to expand the program to the district’s entire bus fleet.

The ACLU, in a letter Friday to Schools Supt. Rosemarie K. Kraeger, expressed its “deep concerns” about MAP and urged the school district to halt the pilot project.

Using radio-frequency technology to track school buses seems “rather unnecessary,” ACLU executive director Steven Brown wrote.

But it’s Middletown’s use of electronic chips to also monitor the students themselves that most troubles the ACLU, Brown wrote.

“RFID [radio-frequency ID] technology was originally developed to track products and cattle,” Brown wrote.

“The privacy and security implications with using this technology for tagging human beings, particularly children, are considerable.… Requiring students to wear RFID labels treats them as objects, not children. The Middletown school district sends a very disturbing message to its young students when it monitors them using technology employed to track cattle, sheep and shipment pallets in warehouses.”

Plus, the IDs could be unsafe, according to the ACLU, because Web sites sell electronic readers that can intercept the data on students’ tags.

Schools Supt. Rosemarie K. Kraeger said yesterday that the school district doesn’t plan to abandon its pilot program. School officials, she said, considered MAP for more than a year and questioned the provider, MAPIT Corp., about how students’ privacy would be protected.

She said the school district is confident that the program includes the necessary safeguards to protect students’ identities.

“I wish Mr. Brown had called to find out the details of the project,” Kraeger said.

“The company went to extra pains to make sure all our concerns had been addressed, and we did our due diligence. We feel secure.”

The School Department sent letters to the parents of the 80 children included in the pilot, and Kraeger said none have complained.

In fact, she said, two parents have recently e-mailed her to express support for the tracking program.

Nonetheless, the ACLU is urging Middletown schools to “respect the privacy and civil liberties of Middletown’s elementary school students” and reconsider implementing the MAP pilot.

“This is just another example of overkill,” Brown said yesterday.

“The biggest concern is how this could acclimate young kids at an early age to being monitored by the government.”

mwims@projo.com