Plans to start a student fingerprint-scanning system at University High School to make lunch lines and record keeping more efficient have been stopped by the Irvine Unified School District after parents complained of its possible Big Brother effect. The high school was to use the new technology to make it faster and easier for students to buy meals, check out books, register their attendance, and buy school event tickets using biometric student ID cards.
It could have many different uses, said Chuck Keith, assistant principal at the high school. Keith came up with the idea after watching a special about school technology on CNN. The project was put on hold after parents complained about the “new millennium technology,” he said. “It ruffled some feathers,” Keith said.
Ted Faison, a parent of a University senior, had concerns about the legality and constitutionality of fingerprinting students. He decided to try to stop the school from implementing the project after receiving a letter from the school Friday stating the school was to begin scanning the 2,300-plus students starting Monday. The laser fingertip ID card system was to begin after winter break on Jan. 8, according to the letter. He met with school administrators and Tom Dunphy, senior vice president of the scanning company, identiMetrics Inc., who was on campus at the time. Faison and a few other parents complained to the district about the project. The school put a hold on the project.
“I did not want my daughter being fingerprinted,” Faison said. “I didn’t want any of the students being fingerprinted. Students are not criminals.”
With a student biometric finger scan, a computer program creates a template of fingerprint characteristics from two fingers. The software scans the ridges and points of the fingerprint to create an individual numerical identification for each person. No fingerprint images are stored–only numerical representations of the points. There is no way to take the data to reconstruct or copy a fingerprint image, according to identiMetrics.
The plan was not reviewed by the district and was the administrators’ choice, district spokesman Ian Hanigan said. The district discontinued plans Tuesday for at least the rest of the year pending review. University High would have been the first Orange County public school to use finger-scanning technology in cafeterias.
Across the country, dozens of schools and colleges have used finger scanners as alternatives to cash transactions in lunchrooms since 2001. Three elementary schools in Santa Barbara could have the ID card scanners in place early next year, making them the first in California. Several other schools in Pennsylvania connected the scanners to the Web so parents can keep tabs on what their children eat for lunch. University High and other district schools have a system in which students push in a code to deduct funds from their accounts.
Although the system would have made lunch more efficient, students and faculty care more and fear that Big Brother may be watching, said Tom Poulos, a senior on the associated student body. “It seems too invasive,” Poulos said. “It seems a little too much.”
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