America’s public schools are again attempting to indoctrinate young children into believing that technology, such as biometrics, are a the answer to their security needs. Elementary schools are now in the picture because biometric technology has advanced enough that the scanners read a fingerprint as small as that of a four year old.

In Rome, Georgia, the West End Elementary School is using fingerprint readers in the cafeteria. Children line up, grab their food and pay with their index fingers. There are school districts across the country that also use biometrics for purposes other than paying for lunch. School nurses use it for dispensing medication. It’s also used for attendance, library privileges, and at school bus stops.

Administrators informed parents that the prints are not stored by the system or accessible to the Internet. If they are not stored by the system, then how do they identify that little Johnny’s index finger is really his? Surely, there is some storage to match the prints to. How else are they charging the students for their meals? That’s right, they are recording unique points of a person’s fingerprint instead of the whole print, which means that your identifying marks are being stored.

The school is bragging that the lunch lines have been cut in half. What they aren’t telling you is that your child’s fingerprint must be stored somewhere to be identified. Nor are they telling you how easy it is to fake a print or what happens when the database is stolen.

In New Egypt, New Jersey, three Plumsted Township schools have adopted the using of iris scanning cameras to check and see if anyone not pre-authorized to enter the school is on the premises. New Egypt, however, only has 1,700 in its entire school district. That’s smaller than most high schools in America. They wanted a better security system than the swipe cards they were using and chose iris scanning. However, with 1,700 children, spread across three schools, iris scanning isn’t the best solution. If the school monitors, teachers, teacher’s aides, counselors, and principals are doing their jobs, it’s easy to identify who isn’t supposed to be there. This school district is relying on technology they don’t need to solve a problem they don’t have.

However, school officials believe that they are allaying concerns of safety and security at their schools with this system. After scanning staff, students, and parents, they still only had a 78% accuracy rate. Outdoor lighting, cameras freezing up or misidentifying people, and people not lining up properly were the most common problems to failure of the system. If the technology cannot be properly used, then it becomes a liability to the safety you are supposedly creating and you still need an actual person to identify the person attempting to enter the building. What was the biggest problem to all this new technology for the school? Once someone had scanned their iris, they held the door open for other people.

Biometrics give parents a feeling of safety and security but it’s not guaranteed. School districts who so readily accept biometrics without proper education are leading children to believe that these systems are infallible. It still does not address the fact that the most prevelant crimes in schools are petty crimes committed by the very people that are supposed to be there.

Most parents who have objected to the implementation in Rome’s schools complain about the lack of communication and transparency given to them. One particular parent complained that he was never informed before his daughter’s print was scanned. His major concern is identity theft and that his daughter had to rely on assurances that the system would never be used for evil purposes.

In Penn Cambria schools in Pennsylvania, school officials assure that the prints are stored as a mathematical formula and can never be turned back into a print. They also claim that the database can never be read by law enforcement for identity purposes. This is, quite frankly, lying to the people. If there is a court order, they will be turning over their database.

Officials also said it was great for parents who couldn’t keep track of prepaid meal tickets who couldn’t do simple math to remember when the tickets were used and had to be loaded with money again. Uh, just how is a fingerprint scanner going to change that? Or are lunches now magically free because you gave up your print?

Biometrics themselves are not evil. They are a great way to perform many tasks faster and more efficiently. Cash and cards can be stolen. You always have your eyes or fingerprints with you. However, the technology is not perfect and doesn’t work 100% of the time. Problems also arise when people are not fully informed on the systems in use, lied to, do not know how to use the systems, don’t understand the system, and circumvent the system (such as holding the door open).

A google search will turn up many results to ponder on the usefulness of biometrics in schools. Right now, biometrics simply are not mature enough to be in such widespread use in the public school system. They don’t work, schools are no place to be setting up shop as faux police checkpoints, and the loss of privacy has not been properly debated. What happens when someone hacks the system and steals this data? Some schools require teachers to have their home address and social security numbers tagged into this information. School officials are not experts in the field and cannot be expected to understand everything about it.

We must question why the mere thought of RFID sends shivers up people’s spines, yet biometrics gets a pass, as if it’s a proven technology that works every time. Right now, these systems are just high-tech spying programs that do not really protect the people it claims to be serving. Biometrics can be useful but low-level security areas, such as elementary schools, are not the place to test them. It creates a false sense of security and teaches children that technology is the be all to end all solution to keeping them safe.