Right-Wingers have always been big on tattoos
A plan to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch has some parents worrying that Big Brother has come to the cafeteria.
The Hope Elementary School District [CA] has notified parents that, beginning this month, students at Monte Vista, Vieja Valley and Hope elementary schools will press an index finger to a scanner before buying cafeteria food.
The scan will call up the student’s name and student ID, teacher’s name and how much the student owes, since some receive government assistance for food.
It is meant to speed up cafeteria lines.
So, in the minds of school administrators, the question isn’t what you want to know about a student before you feed them — it’s how quickly you can find the answers.
“It raises sanitary issues, privacy issues — it is kind of Orwellian,” said Tina Dabby, a parent of two at Monte Vista Elementary. “It just sounds kind of creepy.”
Currently, the information is written on paper and transferred to computer so reports can be compiled and sent to the state and federal governments, which reimburse school districts for the subsidized lunches served.
“It’s so archaic to transfer something from a sheet of paper to a computer day by day,” Hope schools Superintendent Gerrie Fausett told the Santa Barbara News-Press.
Sounds like we’re back to the good old “bar code everyone” solution.
Its meant to input future terrorists into the federal database, so they can be easily tracked and monitored for unusual activity.
Jeezuz, have them get id cards with a bar code on it, you dont need this, its unecessary not to mention creepy.
Sounds unsanitary.
Jeezuz, have them get id cards with a bar code on it, you dont need this, its unecessary not to mention creepy.
The kids lose those, and it’s also possible (read: happens a lot) that the kids can use a card belonging to another student. (without permission, I mean.) Don’t ask how I know this, but I know.
I’ve worked with fingerprint id systems before, and they don’t actually store the fingerprint, just a sort of checksum. I don’t really see a big brother aspect to this, and believe me, I’m a certified tin-foil hat kinda guy.
I’m sorry, but get with the now. Biometrics is here to stay. How long before your fingerprint replaces your PIN number at the ATM. Many computer systems now are also using biometrics to gain access. Stop trying to make everything out to be some sinister, right wing plot to steal your freedom.
So instead of stealing your ATM card they’ll cut your hand off? Great. The future is intellectual security. If you can afford a thumb print scanner, you can afford to take pictures of kids (for verification) and put them in a database then give each one a 6 digit ID number. If they forget, search their name. Not a big deal. In fact, it’d be faster, especially when the 5 year old with paint on his hands can’t buy lunch because they can’t read his thumb.
Hey its a lunch line not a train to Siberia. What do you think 20 years from now little Johnny will be having to explain why he got lime jello 5 days in a row?
If you want to worry look at all the tracking cameras going up in our cities today.
“The kids lose those, and it’s also possible (read: happens a lot) that the kids can use a card belonging to another student. (without permission, I mean.) Don’t ask how I know this, but I know”
Well they lose it, they can be issued another one, and to clear up the kid using anothers card,have it contain a picture id,and compare it to the kids face, not that hard.
Ok so the fingerprint can be used as a checksum rather than keeping it. What if they dont use a checksum.
8, biometric systems don’t have the storage capacity to keep images of entire fingerprints, and in any case such a system would be incredibly slow, to the point of being unusable. These things don’t make one-in-a-million positive identification, but they are good enough to distinguish between a thousand people, easy.
We are slowly becoming a “big brother” society. To the Cheeto eating geeks:: Check sum or not, it’s transparent to the user; meaning, one day it won’t just be a check sum but an actual finger print ID compared against a national database, and yes they will still need a checksum; and no body will be the wiser.
Since the government doesn’t trust the public with sharing truth (too many recent examples), to enable informed public dissensions and discussion; why should I trust the government.
They are doing/trying this with grade school KIDS, because KIDS are less able to understand implications and challenge authority.
Applaud those here who challenge lazy Un-American authority (is the finger print really necessary, think of the eventual misuses).
I’ve worked with fingerprint id systems before, and they don’t actually store the fingerprint, just a sort of checksum.
Today, checksum. Tomorrow, ID to prevent unauthorized kids from entering the school. Then to prevent someone else taking your SATs. Then a National ID….
I’ve worked with this technology and the comments from #3 are absolutely correct.
#7–From a tin-foil hat perspective, using these finger scanners is absolutely the same as using barcoded ID cards, paper forms, or any other form of identification. The way students are identified is irrelevant; the important question is: what happens to the data after it has been created?
Governments (including our own) collected huge amounts of personal data long before barcodes, RFID, or biometric scanners became available.
I think the main point is that nobody trust the government, anymore, NSA spying, torture tactics, innocent people being held without due process. So I don’t think anybody is going to just lay down because the technology isnt’ good enough yet to be a threat. Sooner or later the technology will be there and we will be screwed.
They are doing/trying this with grade school KIDS, because KIDS are less able to understand implications and challenge authority.
Applaud those here who challenge lazy Un-American authority (is the finger print really necessary, think of the eventual misuses).
Fingerprinting is actually quite common place. If you want to work for a school, daycare or any other job that deals with children, you get fingerprinted. You want to buy a gun, you get fingerprinted. You want to be a cop or any other law enforcement job, you get fingerprinted. Work for the government, you get fingerprinted. Its not a big deal, its not big brother, its not the end of the free world. Its done, to protect your identity and to prevent criminals, perverts, scumbags and other dregs of society from hiding behind a false identity and becoming a cop, teacher, daycare worker, or gun owner. Fingerprints do more good then bad. To argue otherwise would be naive.
What poster #14 misses is that we must protect biometric info for such crucial safety issues as hiring teachers, police,… or catching criminals. Hence, biometrics should never be used for trivial reasons like school lunch and by organizations inherently unable to protect such info like schools. Introduction of biometrics for such mundane uses as credit cards or airplane flights can only do damage. A lot of semi-secure deposits of unique identifiers where any half-baked hacker can break in and collect the loot. Made worst by everyone’s assumption that biometrics are ultimately unbereakable, hence trusted beyond the reason. Example, introduce credit card payments by fingerprint and someone will easily steal it and misrepresent it as his own to gain some secure position… Simply, no trivial usage for any biometrics or we will likely suffer more ill results than we can imagine.
The line will move faster once those kids are taken into the government “Frequent cafeteria rewards” program Codename Veronica.
#16 – Moss, it’s not complicated. The NAZI party was a left of center organization. You can’t spin that fact… but it’s cute how you tried.
Thanks for playing, but you lose. Good day sir.
#16 – Moss, it’s not complicated. The NAZI party was a left of center organization. You can’t spin that fact… but it’s cute how you tried.
Thanks for playing, but you lose. Good day sir.
Comment by James Hill — 11/6/2006 @ 3:32 pm
Damn you like to troll !!! The scariest thing is you might actually believe your own crap.
My high school issues every student a pin number, we just type it in. I would prefer just to use my fingerprint, it is faster. I don’t care that they know I buy nachos in addition to my lucnch everyday.
#19 — sadly, as often as I have tried to get James to read history — he continues to rely on trollpedias for his definitions. He accepts political dross even when it confounds any basic history. The last thing he would accept — for example — would be primary source stuff from Hitler or Mussolini. I don’t even suggest that, anymore.