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Yet Another Privacy Violation - This time it's about kids

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Renegade:
While the tech here is pretty darn cool, and I think it would make a great form of 2-part authentication for the front door locks, this particular use is scary:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-ca-school-scan-20121002,0,7431956.story



Instead of paying for their lunches with crumpled dollar bills and loose change, students in Carroll County schools are having their palms scanned in a new check-out system — raising concerns from some parents that their children's privacy is being violated.

The county is one of the first localities in Maryland to use the PalmSecure system, in which children from kindergarten to 12th grade place their hands above an infrared scanner. It identifies unique palm and vein patterns, and converts the image into an encrypted numeric algorithm that records a sale.

Though the school system does not store those images, some parents have complained about the implications of having their children's hands scanned. About 20 percent of parents have declined to participate in the program, said supervisor of food services Karen Sarno.

"I didn't appreciate how they handled it," said Mike Richmond, who has two children at Westminster's Cranberry Elementary School. He said that the school scanned their hands before sending the opt-out form. "I'm concerned about it. I know it's the way of the future, but it's fingerprinting, it's palm-printing."

School officials defend the system, noting that the algorithm is the only piece of data stored; it is used to identify a child's account. If students opt out of the service, they give their names to the cashier, who manually charges their accounts.

Sarno said the school system's goal is to decrease the time between transactions. Children have limited time to eat lunch, she said, and she often hears complaints that children don't like waiting in a long line.

"We're doing whatever we can to reduce that line wait and make the queue better," she said.

...

The palm-reading system will cost a projected $300,000, according to Sarno, for installation of software and hardware in all 43 schools in the system, as well as in the central office.

--- End quote ---

Storing is irrelevant - the kids' handprints need to be in the database for authentication... And the opt-out is AFTERWARDS! When it comes to things like sex, there's another word for getting consent "afterwards".

Ahem... *cough* operant *cough* conditioning *cough*

Maybe my sig below should read something like:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Convenience, deserve neither Liberty nor Convenience. -Benjamin Franklin
--- End quote ---

Deozaan:
Scanning a palm is faster than carrying around a card that can be swiped or waved in front of an RFID scanner?  :huh:

40hz:
At least you can throw the card awayStoring is irrelevant - the kids' handprints need to be in the database for authentication... And the opt-out is AFTERWARDS! When it comes to things like sex, there's another word for getting consent "afterwards".

Ahem... *cough*
-Renegade (October 05, 2012, 12:01 PM)
--- End quote ---

+1 :Thmbsup:

Anything that goes into a government database, especially if it's administered by an outside contractor (see Plausible Deniability) is kept somewhere forever. Even officially expunged or sealed records. It just depends on who is asking to see them that determines whether or not they still "exist." (I know this first hand.)

And "opt out" or asked to be removed? You can't even get Google or Facebook to do that. You really think the powers that be are going to go along with a request (note it's merely "a request" btw) to remove your data from one of their systems? Dream on! Privacy after the fact is not an option.

And operant conditioning? Well...it worked for the Janissaries, it worked for various nationalist "youth movements" sponsored by repressive regimes, and it can work for us! What is considered "acceptable" is mostly what people have gotten used to. And what better place to learn to accept being scanned...and "chipped"...and fingerprinted...and photographed...and monitored on cameras (and that laptop they gave you) than in your hometown's public school system.

Remember - all of this is being done for YOUR PROTECTION. Hey! What are you - some kind of terrorist? No? Then why not just suck it up and get with the program, ok?

:tellme:

app103:
Most of these kids had their fingerprints in a database before this came along. Local police departments run campaigns every year to fingerprint children, in case they are ever abducted. Most parents do not opt out.

Schools photograph all children, every year, and the only "opt out" available is to not pay for the school pics package when they arrive, and just send them back to the school. A parent can not say "do not photograph my child". The child is still photographed, the school still has a copy of the photo, and in most cases every child in the class is given not only their own picture, but also a class picture featuring every child in their class, including the children that "opted out" by not paying. Often school ID cards are issued, using the official school photo. This is also the photo used in the yearbooks.

This photographing business has been going on for longer than I have been alive, with very few changes to how it is implemented. My daughter was photographed this way, and so was I, and my father, and my grandmother before him. I have an aunt that owns a restaurant that used to be a one room schoolhouse, and one wall is decorated with class photos of students that went to school there, with most being over 100 years old.

I think the time to put up a fuss about the photographing is long passed and would prove to be rather futile, today.

And I am not too sure it would be wise to put up a fuss about the palm scanning, either. It is for the protection of the children, and not merely for convenience. You might not understand my point of view unless you were bullied, beaten up, and had your lunch money/tickets stolen as a child. A single act is a multiple assault whose effects do not ever entirely go away, first with an act of violence when the money/tickets are taken, then again when you have to go hungry every day for a week, and then again every day when you are going to/from school from the fear of being attacked again. I still hold my breath when going under a certain bridge, even as an adult in the safety of a car, because of what happened there when I was about 8 years old.

A bully can't steal your palm.

Krishean:
Most of these kids had their fingerprints in a database before this came along. Local police departments run campaigns every year to fingerprint children, in case they are ever abducted. Most parents do not opt out.

...

A bully can't steal your palm.
-app103 (October 05, 2012, 08:08 PM)
--- End quote ---

On the first topic, I remember when I was a kid in the scouts, they had some "class" about fingerprinting, where one of the local police officers talked about how it works, and went around and fingerprinted each person on a card. Back then I was excited to get a card with my fingerprints on it, but I never recieved it and was disappointed. Later on I realized that it may not have been a class at all and they may have been tricking all the kids into getting fingerprinted. Kind of a underhanded tactic with no way to opt out at all. Had I known that I was not going to get the card and that they were going to keep it I probably would have refused.

On the second topic, its also much harder to lose or forget to bring your hand with you than it is for a small rectangular piece of plastic...

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