Fingerprinting lunch-line kids draws criticism
Submitted by MichaelVail on Wed, 01/10/2007 - 11:31pm.
AZ Daily Sun
Posted: Jan 10, 2007
A Williams Elementary-Middle School newsletter has raised student privacy concerns with at least one Williams resident and attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.
The November 2006 edition of the newsletter contained an announcement under "Cafeteria News" that the school would soon begin using fingerprint scanning technology to identify students in the school lunch line.
School officials, however, said the announcement was premature. The technology to implement the fingerprint identification is already in place, but a discussion on whether to implement the system is still in the early phases.
Williams Unified School District Superintendent Thomas McCraley said in an interview that cafeteria staff earlier this school year realized the fingerprint scanning capability during an upgrade of the school's Web-based student information system, PowerSchool, and began researching the possibility.
PowerSchool is an Internet software program that stores and compares student data such as test scores and absenteeism numbers.
"That was about as far as it went," McCraley said of the fingerprint scanning discussion. "There hasn't been any movement forward, at the time anyway, to proceed with this."
However, he stopped short of ruling out the possibility in the future.
McCraley said that cafeteria staff have reported the fingerprint system may expedite the lunch line process at the elementary and middle school.
The issue has attracted the interest of Williams resident James Karlsberger, who, with his wife, has an 8-year-old child attending Williams Elementary-Middle School. Karlsberger did some research on so-called "biometric technology," the official name for systems that identify humans based on physical or behavioral traits.
He's unconvinced that such a system could be put in place without jeopardizing students' privacy and opening them to the threat of identity theft.
"I just think that it's overkill," he said. "(No one) I've spoken with has convinced me that the risks outweigh the gains."
Cafeteria streamlining can be accomplished, he said, "without compromising the privacy of a child by using a body part."
McCraley said he's aware of at least one resident's concern that students' identities could be put at risk: He re-emphasized that no decisions have been made as of yet and that the issue is not yet on any governing board agenda.
Also, McCraley said, the system that school cafeteria workers have researched advertises the secure nature of its finger-scanning product by encrypting "fingerprints" as a series of Xs and Os, not as a fingerprint imprint.
In a letter faxed to Williams School District Governing Board members Monday, ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze argued that such systems can be hacked and that puts people's identity at risk.
"We urge the school board to recognize the serious civil liberties implications of this program ...," she wrote. "Any supposed gain in efficiency that results from the use of this fingerprinting scanning system is more than offset by the dangers imposed in implementing this intrusive technology."
The next meeting of the Williams Unified School District Governing Board will take place at 6 p.m. this evening at Williams High School located at 440 S. Seventh St. in Williams. Governing board meetings are open to the public.
Chelsea DeWeese can be reached at cdeweese@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.
Posted: Jan 10, 2007
A Williams Elementary-Middle School newsletter has raised student privacy concerns with at least one Williams resident and attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona.
The November 2006 edition of the newsletter contained an announcement under "Cafeteria News" that the school would soon begin using fingerprint scanning technology to identify students in the school lunch line.
School officials, however, said the announcement was premature. The technology to implement the fingerprint identification is already in place, but a discussion on whether to implement the system is still in the early phases.
Williams Unified School District Superintendent Thomas McCraley said in an interview that cafeteria staff earlier this school year realized the fingerprint scanning capability during an upgrade of the school's Web-based student information system, PowerSchool, and began researching the possibility.
PowerSchool is an Internet software program that stores and compares student data such as test scores and absenteeism numbers.
"That was about as far as it went," McCraley said of the fingerprint scanning discussion. "There hasn't been any movement forward, at the time anyway, to proceed with this."
However, he stopped short of ruling out the possibility in the future.
McCraley said that cafeteria staff have reported the fingerprint system may expedite the lunch line process at the elementary and middle school.
RESEARCH ON BIOMETRICS
The issue has attracted the interest of Williams resident James Karlsberger, who, with his wife, has an 8-year-old child attending Williams Elementary-Middle School. Karlsberger did some research on so-called "biometric technology," the official name for systems that identify humans based on physical or behavioral traits.
He's unconvinced that such a system could be put in place without jeopardizing students' privacy and opening them to the threat of identity theft.
"I just think that it's overkill," he said. "(No one) I've spoken with has convinced me that the risks outweigh the gains."
Cafeteria streamlining can be accomplished, he said, "without compromising the privacy of a child by using a body part."
McCraley said he's aware of at least one resident's concern that students' identities could be put at risk: He re-emphasized that no decisions have been made as of yet and that the issue is not yet on any governing board agenda.
Also, McCraley said, the system that school cafeteria workers have researched advertises the secure nature of its finger-scanning product by encrypting "fingerprints" as a series of Xs and Os, not as a fingerprint imprint.
In a letter faxed to Williams School District Governing Board members Monday, ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze argued that such systems can be hacked and that puts people's identity at risk.
"We urge the school board to recognize the serious civil liberties implications of this program ...," she wrote. "Any supposed gain in efficiency that results from the use of this fingerprinting scanning system is more than offset by the dangers imposed in implementing this intrusive technology."
The next meeting of the Williams Unified School District Governing Board will take place at 6 p.m. this evening at Williams High School located at 440 S. Seventh St. in Williams. Governing board meetings are open to the public.
Chelsea DeWeese can be reached at cdeweese@azdailysun.com or 556-2250.
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