EAG: GENEVA, Ill. – Students and faculty at Harrison Street Elementary School just love the new thumbprint scanner in the school’s lunch line, but civil rights experts are warning parents about serious privacy concerns with the technology.
The Geneva Unit District 304 replaced a different biometric scanner system for school lunch lines this year with devices from a local company, PushCoin Inc., that read students’ thumb prints to track their accounts, the Daily Herald reports.
“It’s good, because you don’t have to carry your own money or anything like that,” fifth-grader Quinlan Bobeczko told the news site. “It’s just there. Your thumb is easy, because you just have to put your thumb on (the device).”
Got money for this stupid bullshit, but not for quality teachers?
izlamo delenda est …
Interesting subject. I have been concerned about the iPhone fingerprint needed to open. It seems to me that since the government pro any has turned fingerprints in file, they could so easily open your iPhone.
Think of all the ways your fingerprint has been taken. There was a time that some banks asked for a print to cash a check; I know CA requires your fingerprint for a driver’s license; how many jobs have required vetting, which included fingerprints; have you been in the military? Makes you think, doesn’t it.
Our government has insidiously taken away your privacy and rights to ‘due process’. They track you so much more than you know; CCTV on highways, street corners, and places you don’t even know about. They have license plates readers and use them freely.
Think about those horrible ‘red light’ cameras; those are installed, maintained and used by private companies that get a oration of your fine. Due process be damned. A camera that may not even be accurate is your accuser.
Just think about it.
All school district administrators and managers should be required as a condition of employment to have their employee numbers tattooed on their forearms.
They love the thumb print scanneres for the free lunch, but they balk at voter ID for fair elections. Go figure.
Why not make the lunch card the same as the student ID? In our district, if the kid forgets their student ID they cannot get into school without going to the office for a temporary ID that costs $5. The temporary ID is associated to the student account when issued and is also used to swipe at the cafeteria.
must be part of the nutritional rules moochelle made up with her “edicts” on school lunches.
no finger print, no nutrition.
funny we “grubers need the politically connected to tell us how our children should eat on a national level. thank goodness they have the time to educate us.
and I used to think a bologna sandwich, a few potato chips and moon pie in a brown bag was a good lunch. finger prints never were required to eat back then.
Wait until some miscreant student cuts off another’s finger so he can get extra portions.
OK, they install this thing inside the school instead of at the GATE?
Honest Abe was edumacated with a piece of slate, chalk, books and a caning now and then
Kids should be taught by someone who had the ethic of Samuel Clemens’ Riverboat Pilot teacher:
“You can depend on it, I’ll learn him or kill him.”
@ Sam#nevercriminalHillary – – You might want to rethink the whole fingerprint lock thing altogether.
I am a current user of the fingerprint lock. However just recently I was reading an article where a judge ordered someone to unlock their phone via the fingerprint. Unlocking the phone, it was argued in court, would be self incriminating.
However it was ruled that having someone unlock a device with a fingerprint is not self incriminating, biomarkers are not thoughts. Law enforcement asking someone to give up finger prints after an arrest is not testimonial.
BUT, disclosing a passcode requires someone to speak or say what’s on their mind and thereby is self incriminating.
Having read this, next time I decide to sit down and play with settings, I’m getting rid of the fingerprint lock and moving to using a passcode.
My first thought exactly Thirdtwin.
An advantage pointed out is no more lost lunch cards. That means we don’t need to teach responsibility anymore. Most students can get by a day without lunch and the hunger will make sure they don’t lose or forget the card in the future.
I brown bagged lunch in school and there were times I forgot it. There was no backup meal waiting for me, and I never carried money in school. Hey, I’m alive today!
Today we make lunch for our kids to bring to school. Sometimes they forget it and they school will not let them not eat. They throw a $3 bill in the mail for a greasy slice of pizza my kids don’t even eat anyhow because it’s worse than frozen microwave type.
@old_oaks – You have it exactly right. Fingerprints and retina patterns are treated like keys to a lock. They are physical objects and their use can be compelled. Passwords and PINs and the like are ideas and cannot be compelled not only for 5th Amendment reasons, but also 1st Amendment free speech reasons. At least that’s how a lawyer explained it to me recently.
I expect some court somewhere soon will find some twisted perversion of logic to decide that you can’t legally stop govt snooping in any manner. That’s the trend anyway and I don’t see anything to stop much less reverse that trend.
Just stamp a special code on everyone’s forehead – problem solved.
Trump’ll git-r-dun.
My phone unlocks with a fingerprint also. Who’s fingerprint it works with I’m not sure because it sure as shit doesn’t work with mine. I try it 5 times, phone locks me out for 30 seconds and then gives an option for a PIN. It’s time to throw the piece of shit away.
@Sam, the fingerprint password is for convenience.
If you don’t like it, there’s still the option of using a traditional password that you type in.
It’s a convenience/security trade-off.
I still use the old kind because the fingerprint one has been having a lot of issues.
Your government is run by corrupt liars and thieves trying to actively strip you of all your constitutional and God-Given rights and you want to be outraged about a purely administrative technology to track school lunch transactions? Get a grip people. This is a non-issue.
@Bill – fingerprints are what we left after eating lunch, especially after a gooey desert.
Good Training
@old_oaks- my point exactly, although when I reread my post, it had gotten muddled. Sorry about that
Also, isn’t it great that the government has figured a great way to get our fringerprints, as early as possible? Always gathering information. I’m certain our DNA records are kept, already. Tons of ways to get that-routine blood tests, dental work, etc. by our lovely government.
My kids both came home around first grade with some cards we were supposed to fill out and return to the school. The cards were from the local PD who came and visited the class and processed the kid’s fingerprints onto the cards.
It was disguised as a way of providing the local PD with kid’s biomarkers in case the kids were abducted from the bus stop. I dropped them into the shredder.
Benefits pay double in case of accidental death or injury anyway.