Word: fingered
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...especially kindergarteners, can't remember their six-digit ID number, which they're required to type into keypads at the end of lunch lines. She then found out that there was technology that would allow a scanner to identify a kid qualified for lunch with the swipe of a finger, moving him or her quickly along. It would help kids who regularly forget their lunch money, and it would potentially remove some of the stigma faced by children who receive special tickets for free or reduced lunch. She proposed the idea, believing it would be the perfect solution...
Elementary and high school students in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia use finger scans to pay for lunch - and even to check into class. But in many other states, the parental outcry about privacy has stopped the technology in its tracks. Michigan and Iowa have passed laws essentially barring schools from taking electronic fingerprints of children. Last month, Illinois enacted a law requiring schools to get parental consent before capturing an image of a child's finger...
...Finger scanning is a type of biometric, or a form of identification. So is a person's voice, even odor, sweat pores and lips. It's not known how many schools use finger scans and other biometrics. But observers of the $1 billion North American biometrics industry say schools represent a small but growing share of their market...
...example of how the technology typically works, consider another Colorado school district: St. Vrain Valley. School administrators spend hours at the start of each school year scanning several points on the student's right index finger. "The information is saved within our system - it doesn't go anyplace else," says Shelly Allen, director of nutrition services for the 23,000-student district. When the student reaches the end of the line, she places an index finger on a pad about the size of a car's garage opener. Her name, and sometimes an image of her face, appears...
...there is nothing static about family reaction. Parents are often caught off-guard by the arrival of the new technology in their children's school. Last fall, Jim Karlsberger's eight-year-old son returned from school with a newsletter briefly reporting that lunchroom finger scanning was set to begin. "I thought it was Orwellian," says Karlsberger, a 43-year-old hotel manager in Williams, Ariz. "I find it hard to believe that someone, someday, won't find a way to compromise the information on my child's fingerprint." He rallied dozens of parents and the American Civil Liberties union...