Do YOU Think It's Right?

[kat2220]

Kids buy lunches with scans of fingers
The never-ending march of technology now means school children here can pay for their cafeteria sloppy joes with their fingers.

Rome City Schools is switching to a scanning system that lets students use their fingerprints to access their accounts. In the past, students had to punch in their pin numbers.

"The finger's better because all you've got to do is put your finger in, and you don't have to do the number and get mixed up," said Adrianna Harris, a second grader at Anna K. Davie Elementary School.

The new system speeds lunch lines, said city administrators. It's being phased in to Rome High School, Rome Middle School and all the city's elementary schools. The city hopes to have the system in use next month system-wide.

Some parents are uneasy with having their children's fingerprints scanned, and wonder about how well the information is secured.

"It may be perfectly secure, but my daughter is a minor and I understand that supposedly the kids have the option to not have their prints scanned, but that's not being articulated to my daughter," said Hal Storey, who's daughter is a 10th grader at Rome High.


This just makes me uncomfortable and WRONG!

 

[Professur]

Some parents are uneasy with having their children's fingerprints scanned, and wonder about how well the information is secured.

And there's the crux of the issue. I've installed fingerprint ID systems and know how they're supposed to work. you've got 2 servers. One is a respond only unit, containing the fingerprint data, and an Id code. Heavily encrypted, there's no way to backup or recover information from this machine. The other server contains the database with the student information, usually including stuff like alerts for diabetics and alergies. When the student fingers the scanner, the print is read, encrypted and fed to the first server. A comparison is made, and the student id is passed to the second server, which is the only one which can generate usable output data. There's no way to extract the fingerprint data, or generate the student id without the finger present .... which makes hacking the system rather redundant.

 

[TexasRaceLady]

I'm not going to get into the 'right vs wrong' aspect.

However, as a teacher I can see how it would move things along in the lunch lines. For years, our students carried punch cards --- kids forget them, lose them. Then we went to putting in the pin number and got 'I forgot my number' came to be the norm --- the line was held up until the number could be located on the master list. After 3 times of 'forgetting' --- the child was denied a plate lunch and given a PBJ and milk --- that brought the parents up because they'd paid for lunches.

I can see where the fingerprint would be the fastest. Besides, aren't some bank cards going to that, now?

 

[fergy1370]

What happen to money? Or would that cause the kids to use some responsibility and keep up with it?

 

[Mopardh9]

What happen to money? Or would that cause the kids to use some responsibility and keep up with it?

Ah yes...remember when you had your 35 cents ready for your lunch (dating myself here), no problems, line moved nice and smooth. Seems with technology there always comes hesitation. I for one think that figerprint scanning is a good thing, i know when i was a kid i hated to wait for my food,come to think of it i still do.

 

[SlowNeasy]

the problem with money is often it doesn't go to where it's intended. kids could use it for something else or even have it taken away by bullies/gangs. kids didn't carry guns to school either when i was a kid. well maybe stash a rifle in their locker so didn't have to go back home before after school (or before) hunting <g>

 

[Magnethead]

yea, we use PIN's at our school...and no worry on slowness of the line, having 2 lines and 1 server on each line is plenty slow to begin with (our HS: about 90 kids per grade or so and 2 grades per lunch period, with 6 grades on campus)

 

[Professur]

PINs are easy to steal. And unless you get some sort of Id popup on the register screen .... untracable.

 

[TexasRaceLady]

MH, the junior high where I worked had 1400 kids in just 2 grades. We had 3 lunch periods, and those were jammed. I think they went to 4 lunch periods after I left.