Slashdot Mirror
School Installs Biometric Fingerprint System For Cafeteria
An anonymous reader writes with news about a school in England that has introduced a cashless cafeteria system that is raising some privacy concerns among some. Stourbridge students will soon be able to pay for their lunch without searching their pockets for change. Redhill School has spent £20,000 updating its dining facilities and introducing a cashless catering system. The system will allow parents to deposit funds into students catering accounts, to be debited by the pupil's biometric fingerprint scan at the point of sale. Headteacher Stephen Dunster said: "The benefits are that pupils are less likely to lose cash, parents know their children are using their dinner money to buy nutritious food and there will also be a system to alert staff if students are purchasing food that they may be allergic to."
in my kid's school in the USA the only way to pay for school lunch is to send a check once a month. no check, no lunch, no lost money, no tracking
Now bullies are going to beat them up to take their fingerprints. That might be less fun.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Already happens in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_National_DNA_Database
Fucking sucks. I'm on it, despite committing no crime or ever having been charged with one!
Go to Disney World and buy any multi-day pass, and your fingerprints are digitally scanned. I'm sure they would be happy to turn over the data to law enforcement if requested. The prints taken from when you were 5yrs old could be used in an investigation decades later.
Awesome! Let's have everyone use their index finger, touch the same spot and then eat a bunch of food with their hands. What could possibly go wrong?
No, it's about an overly complicated solution to a problem that can be solved with much simpler means.
If the students are required to carry their school-issued ID, that school-issued ID can serve as their payment card, and if there's a concern with fraud in the sense of a different student using the card, then add a PIN pad to the card reader. Mind you, at least in the elementary schools the lunch ladies know who's on free and reduced lunch, who has special diets, etc, so it would be harder for fraud by kids.
Or, cross-link the ID card system's picture database to the POS in the cafeteria, so that when the card is swiped, the picture comes up on-screen, and the lunch lady can see if the student paying is the student on the ID.
And as for elementary schools, at least around here the kids come as a class, and many times the lunch lady simply points to the kid's face on the touchscreen as the whole class is on-screen at one time, so the kid doesn't even need ID.
This fingerprint system seems like an overly complicated, overly invasive means to cover a couple bucks or equivalent-pounds worth of food every day.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I work in IT in English schools.
Welcome to a decade ago.
I've worked in several schools that have biometric library systems and the move to cashless canteens has been underway for years (I've never happened to work with one, but that's not because they aren't around).
It is sold as preventing bullying, stopping you having to pay for the cards, etc. The privacy implications came up 10-15 years ago. Nobody, especially parents, really cared.
Hell, five years ago, my daughter's creche had fingerprint entry (I refused to take part, mainly because I saw it as insecure given I could gummi-bear the reader and enter as whoever came in last, but I was apparently the first to complain).
Old news people. It's already in schools all over the UK. There was minimal protest.
I'm confused - you said:
And then proceeded to list even more complicated means of solving the problem.
As it is, you can't 'forget' to bring your fingerprint with you, or lose it on the bus, or have it stolen. You can't "share" your fingerprints with your friends by handing them your id & telling them your PIN. And you don't rely on a harried, low-paid "lunch lady" to make a positive ID based on a grainy photo taken 6 months ago against the child who's grown 3 inches, gained 20 pounds, and changed their hair completely in last 3 months standing in front of them.
Two things...
First off, British schools don't have "rent-a-cops", security scanners or ID cards, this is an American thing. The hardest security you'll come across in a school in the UK is the school gate.
Secondly, the biometrics are just an additional method of payment, it's entirely optional. No one's stopping you from paying in cash. If I was tasked with setting up a hassle free method of tracking kids deductions from their pre-paid balance, this would likely be the route I'd go too. It's far cheaper to buy 2-3 scanners than to kit the whole school out with RFID tags, and it doesn't come with the inevitable hang-up of things getting lost, stolen or forgotten.
There's not much risk of the data being shared outside the school, as even the police aren't allowed to store biometric records of anyone without an active criminal record.
Schools maintain a photographic record of their students already.
A cafeteria would need a device of some kind in either system.
Existing POS software for school cafeterias already can cross-reference the enrollment records and photos.
Troubleshooting a system that's widely implemented beyond the cafeteria is also easier, as the people that maintain the ID database, the enrollment records database, and the POS system already exist. They'd either have to take-on new duties or would have to hire someone else.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Screw that..
Just tag'em at birth, never had any complaints from the cat and you can always just scan the QR code tattooed on their forhead when you forget their name/birthday/age again or whatever.
Okay - and? Have you ever looked at a photo of a child at the beginning and end of a 9-month school year? They grow fast, and change *dramatically* over the course of 9 months. If you have to perform a match between "little Johnny" today and a grainy photo of "little Johnny" 9 months ago, that's not as easy as you make it sound - especially when you have about 3 seconds or so to make that determination. And using a swiped ID card still doesn't address the problem of "I lost my ID," or "I forgot my ID at home," or "somebdy stole my ID on the bus / at recess."
Pretty hard to imagine "forgetting" your fingerprints... also hard to imagine no raised eyebrows if somebody walks up with a severed finger and tries to use that to pay.
Great, and nothing's stopping that from happening now - in addition to a photo record, the administration will take a fingerprint, and tie that to the student's records. Then at the cafeteria terminal, the student will present their finger (rather than a possibly-lost-or-stolen ID card).
Why? To attach a fingerprint scanner to the POS terminal, instead of a magnetic card reader? That's the ONLY difference in the system you're proposing - don't use fingerprints, use a card instead. The integration of these systems has to happen anyway, the token - be it a card or a fingerprint - has to be registered at the POS terminal. Except you can lose a card easily. Much harder to lose fingerprints - which means... the child is less likely to go hungry because they lost a card.
it takes longer because they have to route the data from the fingerprint scanner through the local FBI office to check for people on the no-cafeteria list.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Exactly. I paid for a school lunch using a similar account linked to a PIN 20 years ago. When a kid forgot their pin, the cashier looked their name up in a binder to enter it correctly. There is no need for account security if the maximum withdrawal rate is 1 lunch per day.
I was in HS from 99 to 03. We had ID cards, but we didnt need them for anything. I didnt think anything of it
Jr year (2002-2002) the security guards started not allowing students in without showing ID. Now, the security guard knew damn near every kid in school (we had a full HS of under 500 people) but no student was allowed in without the id.
Tell me, what good reason is there for that other than getting the students more used to submitting to authority? If the security guard didnt know the student fine, but if he did he STILL had to check every single ID.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
This fingerprint system seems like an overly complicated, overly invasive means to cover a couple bucks or equivalent-pounds worth of food every day.
It is.
First, you don't use fingerprints. The dangers have been discussed on Slashdot enough I don't need to elaborate. You NEVER use biometrics for "casual" security, even more so if there is a third party involved.
Second, the British government LOVES surveillance and I'm sure that their law enforcement community will get access to every thumbprint scanned. If it works here (no major public backlash), it will be implemented across the country for this very reason.
Third, it is not necessary to use fingerprints. A student ID card and PIN should be sufficient. Fraud can easily be avoided by adding a cashier to look at the picture on the card. The cashier can double as a monitor to keep the students in line in the cafeteria.
Fourth, this system will fail the same way it does in the US. Parents will forget to keep the students account topped off and their kids will be sent back to class on empty stomachs.
You get on it just for being arrested.
The last time I bought alcohol, I happened to have my 17-year-old son with me. The cashier wanted to see his ID as well as mine. She wasn't going to sell to me because he was with me! Said it was the stores new policy. I asked to speak with the manager, who confirmed that it was the store policy. When I told him this policy was stupid, he backed down and sold me the alcohol. This "It's for the CHILDREN!" crap has got to stop!
No, its about teachers having no friggen clue what their job is.
Running the cafeteria is not the teacher's job.
What better life lesson is there than "Lose your money, you don't eat."?
At least in California, it is illegal for the school to let a child go hungry. If they don't have money in their account, then it goes into deficit, and they send emails nagging the parent. I know this because I forgot to fund my kid's account a few times. Most parents pay for the lunches on line, so very few kids have cash for bullies to steal.
cant talk for him but my objection is giving a school a DB of all kids finger prints. Im SO SURE that it would NEVER be accessed by law enforcement for fishing expeditions....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same