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Wed 4 Apr, 2007 10:29 am
Taunton schools this spring could become the first in Massachusetts to have students pay for lunch by scanning their fingerprints, a plan that is triggering an uproar among parents and ACLU officials worried about privacy and possible identity theft.
Under the plan, which is voluntary, schools will scan two fingerprints from each student, which will be converted into an individual number linked to a meal account.
School officials say the new system will speed the cafeteria line, possibly let parents monitor what children eat, and lift the stigma from poor students who receive free or reduced-price lunches. They say the system is secure because the fingerprint image is never stored, only a numeric representation of it.
I don't know what to think about the privacy/identity issues....it feels so "Brave New World"
I do like the pluses, the parents being able to monitor, taking away the stigma of free lunch.
what do you think linkat?
I'm not sure what I think. It sounds efficient - being a practical sort of person I can see the benefit. I like having a summary of what the kids are eating too.
But it does seem creepy to use your fingerprint. I think I would feel more comfortable with some other sort of device like a card or identifying number. But with younger kids, they could lose it, get stolen, forget their number, give it to another kid.
I suppose I would have to wait and see it out. I do like the aspect of it being voluntary so those that feel uncomfortable about it do not have to participate.
my place used to have a thumb-print scanner.
its an engineering office, and they like to try out the latest gadgets.
its official use was to let the receptionist know people's whereabouts.
(when you "flexed out" you could type in a comment).
but most people felt it was the company's way of keeping track of our hours.
after about a year, they switched to cards.
the scanner wasn't perfect -- at one point it thought i was someone else because my print was similar enough to someone else's...
Lunch money....lunch tickets...pay-a-you-go lunch cards......
Not only are all of these commercial necessities detachable parts--time is lost from every classroom day because of the bookkeeping.
Lunch money? Now, don't go getting all radical on us, Noddy.
Roger--
One of my sons was a child with an infinite number of detachable parts. Lunch money...homework...notes...my grey hair started early.
At my school, we've got these ID cards that we scan, people rarely forget to bring them, because you get a detention if you forget it too often and you can't get lunch without it. For a while everyone absolutely hated them, but they're used to them now. I really don't think the finger print thing is necessary at all, not only does it just...sound creapy, but I'm sure that the technology is expensive. In my opinion, it's money being wasted on something that could be going towards things much more important than lunch accounts, like books and school supplies.
skeptical--
Unfortunately school lunch accounts involve considerable amounts of money. The money must be accounted for.
The fingerprint method frees up the time that used to be used to collect lunch money--more than an hour every week can now be used for class instruction instead of petty bookkeeping.
My memory of school lunch is good but not finely detailed. Back at St. Nick's grammar school, it must have cost something, I'm thinking, 25 cents, 35 cents , not as nothing then as it is now. But then there was this long array of things like beef stew, tuna casserole, sloppy joes, always some soup, most of it delicious to our then tastebuds. I got in the line sometimes, had a bag from home sometimes. High school lunches were so bad as to necessitate learning how to pack your own lunch in defense. I rarely had money except for the bus, my father then being out of work a lot, but that was in high school, when the food was terrible anyway.
I dunno, I'm this plaintive liberal. We spend billions and trillions on war. how much does a good lunch cost, relative to that.
Seems like a pretty good vector for spreading germs.
I wouldn't go for scanning my children.
When they were younger, I went by the cafeteria once a month or so and gave them a check, told them to put half in cubs account and half in cubettes. The kids walked by the cashier with their tray and said "482." Cashier punched in their number, and the lunch amount was deducted.
Pretty efficient, and no lunch money collection took place in the classroom. Those on assisted lunch also just said their number, so no one knew.
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