Decius wrote:
] Laughing Boy wrote:
] ] ] The Hanover Community School Corp. plans to use a new
] ] ] cafeteria cash register system, which uses fingerprints
] ] ] instead of meal cards to charge students.
] ]
] ] Call me crazy... but my highschool had I think a magstripe
] or
] ] barcode reader for scanning student photo IDs. It seemed to
]
] ] work really well at keeping track of who bought what in the
] ] cafeteria without conjuring scary Orwellian "Big Brother"
] ] images. I fail to see why a biometric system is necessary
] in
] ] a school cafeteria.
]
] Its really convenient because you never have a situation where
] you "forgot your lunchcard." Its also less expensive then
] issueing cards.

It is convenient, but it also does not encourage kids to keep track of their belongings. "Lost your ID? Bad kitty! No lunch 4 u!" Of course it was never like that back in my HS days - you could step aside and fill out a form and go thru the red tape... which was a pain in the ass. And if you made a habit of it a couple days in a row, they would send you to the office to get a new ID card issued. All of which took away part of your lunch period; time you got to spend with your friends, eating, studying, etc. "forget/misplace ID = BAD!"

] The neat thing about this application is that its a small,
] closed system. If the data being collected is not useful for
] law enforcement purposes, and its not networked, then there
] really isn't much to worry about here. The implications are
] different in other contexts. I would be more concerned about
] the fact that state is likely stamping the students
] fingerprints on to the back of their driver's licenses with 2d
] bar codes...

There is that too... there is also the fact that at some point the schools biometric system WILL be upgraded. Say next generation is a system that DOES keep an image of the thumb print. Then into a networked system. "What? Why didn't we tell you about the 'system upgrades'? Because we didn't think it was that big a deal - the system was already in place and old hardware needed replacing." And at that point, law enforcement has the teeth to step in and say "we need access to these records you have in conjunction with the investigation of a crime." A few people will make a stink, but wont make loud enough of a voice to stop it, because its already in place and what was once widely viewed as an invasion of civil liberties is now getting nary a raised eyebrow. And then the next phase begins... This is what I mean about civil liberties being chipped away a little at a time, so no one really takes notice.

Its a slippery slope and there is no going back up hill once you start down. Sure a system like this is convenient. But ask youself is the short-term convenience really worth it when you look at the bigger picture?

LB

RE: Some question using student fingerprints for school meals