It’s a high tech idea whose time has — or may sometime soon — come.
Palm Beach County schools officials are considering a proposal that would have the more than 60,000 students who ride a big yellow bus to school each day giving their fingerprints on an electronic key pad to get on the bus. Simply put, biometrics is the use of a person’s unique biological characteristics — most typically their fingerprint — to identify them.
For years now, school districts around the nation have used electronic fingerprint scanners to keep track of which child gets on which school bus and which child checks out which book from school media centers, and to allow children to access their lunch accounts in cafeterias.
In his message to principals, he said he got 48 responses to his five-question anonymous survey. About 60 percent of principals responding said they agreed that using biometric technology was better than simply giving students ID cards. Fifty-one percent said they would support using the fingerprint technology for student attendance, in the cafeteria lunch line and media centers, and to keep track of students on buses.
Brennan said parents can choose to opt out of the system, and that it speeds up the lunch line because children don’t have to deal with remembering an access code to get to their lunch account. It also better ensures security because students can steal another student’s ID card or access code, but they can’t steal a fingerprint.
“Especially with little kids, safety is critical,” Shaw said. “If there are any tools out there that can help us keep track of children and ensure safety, I think it is well worth exploring.”
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation — which works to protect consumer and privacy rights in the electronic age — said making kids give their fingerprints to get on a bus seemed like “overkill” and something of an invasion of privacy. “For lack of a better word,” Tien said, “it is creepy to contemplate a plan that involves fingerprinting all the kids in a school.”
Palm Beach County schools officials are considering a proposal that would have the more than 60,000 students who ride a big yellow bus to school each day giving their fingerprints on an electronic key pad to get on the bus. Simply put, biometrics is the use of a person’s unique biological characteristics — most typically their fingerprint — to identify them.
For years now, school districts around the nation have used electronic fingerprint scanners to keep track of which child gets on which school bus and which child checks out which book from school media centers, and to allow children to access their lunch accounts in cafeterias.
In his message to principals, he said he got 48 responses to his five-question anonymous survey. About 60 percent of principals responding said they agreed that using biometric technology was better than simply giving students ID cards. Fifty-one percent said they would support using the fingerprint technology for student attendance, in the cafeteria lunch line and media centers, and to keep track of students on buses.
Brennan said parents can choose to opt out of the system, and that it speeds up the lunch line because children don’t have to deal with remembering an access code to get to their lunch account. It also better ensures security because students can steal another student’s ID card or access code, but they can’t steal a fingerprint.
“Especially with little kids, safety is critical,” Shaw said. “If there are any tools out there that can help us keep track of children and ensure safety, I think it is well worth exploring.”
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation — which works to protect consumer and privacy rights in the electronic age — said making kids give their fingerprints to get on a bus seemed like “overkill” and something of an invasion of privacy. “For lack of a better word,” Tien said, “it is creepy to contemplate a plan that involves fingerprinting all the kids in a school.”
