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School Lunch Program Scans Student Thumbprints For 'Tracking Purposes'

Posted by Soulskill on from the there-ain't-no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch dept.

schwit1 writes with news that a school district in Pennsylvania is providing free lunches to schoolchildren as part of an initiative to improve nutrition. Instead of providing the lunches to all students without question, they made the program opt-in. Since not all students get the lunches, they needed a way to track who was getting them. Officials decided the best way to do so would be to invest in biometric software that scans students's thumbprints every time they pick up lunch. The data collected by these scanners goes not just to the school district, but to the federal government as well.

20 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Frosty by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    Does it also report what they eat? Mine's a supersized FROSTY!!!!!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Frosty by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm sure it will soon. There are some potential benefits: noticing that a diabetic student is buying a frosty milkshake everyday, or that a child with seafood allergies is buying fish sticks every week, or that a morbidly obese student or builimic student are buying 5 servings of ice cream every day might all be useful to the parents and the school. And the usefulness of such information can be used to justify monitoring _all_ students.

      I recently encountered this sort of thing at a university where the IT department implemented extremely detailed tracking of wifi use. They would report to the parents, without notification to the student, where a student's laptop was last detected and what wifi access points they normally used at certain times of day. The nominal reason was "so the parents could contact the student". I was quite surprised, though not shocked, at their casual approach to privacy, especially since the same system monitored staff, visitors, campus police cell phones, and the personnel at the ROTC and military research facilities on their campus

    2. Re:Frosty by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 2

      I'm sure it will soon. There are some potential benefits: noticing that a diabetic student is buying a frosty milkshake everyday, or that a child with seafood allergies is buying fish sticks every week, or that a morbidly obese student or builimic student are buying 5 servings of ice cream every day might all be useful to the parents and the school. And the usefulness of such information can be used to justify monitoring _all_ students.

      Is it really the school's or government's responsibility to protect kids from these things? In addition, since only poor kids will qualify for free lunches, is this simply a way for the government to add to a fingerprint database to track these kids as adults? When biometrics are used for security at a place of work, you as an individual can choose to work there or not. When used at a public institution, you don't have the ability to refuse.

  2. Scare quotes? by guises · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's with the scare quotes? Of course the thumb prints are for tracking purposes. What else could they possibly be good for? A collage?

    1. Re:Scare quotes? by Goofy+Android · · Score: 2

      Fingerprints have traditionally been used as a form of identification rather than as a monitoring tool. Tracking is when you combine that information with other information so you learn John doesn't eat healthy food.

    2. Re:Scare quotes? by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's with the scare quotes? Of course the thumb prints are for tracking purposes. What else could they possibly be good for? A collage?

      And how many more Snowden events need to go down before you realize those quotes are pretty valid today?

      When it comes to collecting data today...ANY fucking data, you can rest assured it's being used for more than the "advertised" purpose.

      Don't be ignorant about it. It's how we got here.

  3. Oh no, by Lumpio- · · Score: 2

    The school and the federal government might find out which students are getting a healthy and nutritious meal and when. This is unacceptable. I get that this is a bit silly but I don't exactly see the privacy concern.

    1. Re:Oh no, by freeze128 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      OK, here is the privacy concern: The company sponsoring this now has thumbprints of all the students in the program on record. With the thumbprints, the student can then be impersonated at other establishments that use fingerprints for authentication. Get it? If not, see slashdot articles about fingerprint readers at Disneyland.

      A simple magstripe card would have provided the same information, and it's unlikely that it would be used anywhere else.

    2. Re:Oh no, by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      No they aren't. Fingerprint readers don't work like that. You get a hash function that is related to ridge pattern (or whatever they happen to be scanning). You can't print out an FBI approved thumb to share with anyone else.

      And yes, they don't need to use the thumb, you could well do the same thing with a mag stripe card. Except that the junior bozo would have to remember to bring the card with them. The thumb, not so much.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  4. Devils advocate here by Chewbacon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps they use thumbprints as opposed to swipe cards that students lose? When I was in elementary school we had the cards for our cash accounts and a friend lost his almost every week. Yes, thumbprints sound a little scary, but even if they gave them ID cards they would still be tracking them.

    --
    Chewbacon
    The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
    1. Re:Devils advocate here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Perhaps they use thumbprints as opposed to swipe cards that students lose?

      Perhaps you should read the article?

      Apparently to avoid the stigma of being labelled poor, and that some poor kids' parents don't read & therefore don't sign up for the free lunch program, they decided to provide free lunch to everybody.

      Since everybody is eligible, there is no need to verify eligibility, and no need to spend millions on this biometric tracking system.

      And that's even ignoring the privacy implications - are school districts swimming in so much cash that there is nothing useful they can spend money on?

  5. On the whole, not a bad idea by Cantankerous+Cur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First, there's only one aspect to that is really objectionable--that the federal government gets the data with no limitations. A fingerprint scanner isn't a bad idea for something needing low security where you're dealing with forgetful preteens. They're inexpensive although the software/system isn't.

    To be honest, I don't really understand the objection to being tracked in the first place. It's just an extension of tracking food stamps. The government makes no secret that if you're going to be the recipient of funds, you're going to be tracked (unless you're a multinational corporation). All that needs to be done is explicitly state that the data will be anonymized (which is likely to be done anyway as this involves minors) and there's minimal issue here.

  6. Re:Nutrious school lunches by hduff · · Score: 2

    Providing a lunch for students regardless of need is fine (notwithstanding the biometric tracking issues), but is the food still crap? Last I heard, schools were offering really non-nutritious fast food type lunches because it was cheaper than hiring cooks and servers to provide regular meals.

    No. They offer unappealing "healthy" food that mostly is thrown away.

    --
    "I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
  7. DICE, Please fix by itsenrique · · Score: 5, Insightful

    -The icons overlapping the title -The lack of 'Read more' or 'View comments'

    1. Re:DICE, Please fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      -The icons overlapping the title
      -The lack of 'Read more' or 'View comments'

      They're trying to boil the frog, to slowly implement Beta... It never went away they're trying to fo

  8. What most people overlook... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The school systems are often the first entry point for the prison industrial complex. Some schools already have metal detectors and armed security guards that treat students as prisoners and/or future criminals. After passing thumbprints into the federal database, don't be surprised if full prints and DNA samples are next. The sooner that the government identifies a future criminal, the sooner someone can get them into the prison pipeline to make money off of them.

    1. Re:What most people overlook... by Uberbah · · Score: 2

      Oh please, the government isn't putting nearly as much criminals away as necessary.

      If you're referring to corrupt politicians, white collar crime, and war criminals, then no, we aren't putting enough people away. If you're referring to poor and blue collar crime, you're a moron, as the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world, both in raw numbers and as a percentage of the population.

      Almost all of which is made up of poor and blue collar offenders.

  9. Just more proof by houghi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  10. Prior art by mrbester · · Score: 2

    ISTR a few years ago some other school tried this (for similar reasons: the kids won't get beat up for their lunch money if they aren't carrying any, "ease of use", blah blah). The parents told them to fuck off and spend the money on important shit like textbooks and classroom supplies.

    --
    "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  11. Actually, imagine a world... by tlambert · · Score: 2

    Imagine a world where Wesley Snipes cuts off your poor innocent child's thumb to get a free lunch, instead of stealing their social security number and taking out a loan for a house, or something!

    Actually, imagine a world where children are effectively indoctrinated from a young age to assume an unreliable and insecure technology is a valid means of personal identification, and therefore fail to question the validity of its pervasive use in later life.

    Kinda like bank cards and PIN numbers, or using your credit card at Target, or assuming that chip-and-pin will fix all avenues of fraud and abuse.