Biometric Lunch Scanners Raise Parent Ire in North Adams

Drury High School cafeteria manager Trinity Spencer shows how easy the school's new biometric system is. Some parents, however, are concerned about privacy issues.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The introduction of biometrics in the school lunch line has a number of parents concerned about privacy and big-government intrusion into their children's lives.



The school system is instituting the equipment at lunch lines this fall after more than a year of discussion about parents failing to pay delinquent lunch bills, the stigma surrounding free and reduced lunches and the need for student privacy.



But a notice sent home to parents informing them of the changes sparked a firestorm on Facebook, with some parents and community members decrying what they see as an invasion — not a protection — of privacy.



Corey Nicholas, food service director for the public schools, said the idea was to move students through the cafeteria line more efficiently and ensure parents could accurately track their children's lunch habits online.



The district's "point of sale" equipment, NutriKids, supports the new biometric readers from identiMetrics.



"It's definitely going to streamline the system and make the transactions more accurate," said Nicholas on Tuesday. "Those that participate are able to see all those little transactions ... we want to make sure those transactions are as transparent as possible."



The use of biometrics — from fingers to irises — has been proliferating across public schools and higher education institutions as a way to increase efficiency and security. It's even gaining traction on iPhones and automobiles. The state of Florida, however, banned the use of biometrics in schools in June, calling it an invasion of children's privacy and a civil rights issue.



"No child should have to have a body part scanned to get a meal! There was no problems with those swipe cards that we were ever made aware of," wrote one parent on Facebook, who said she'd send her child with bag lunch before allowing a fingerprint scan.



Parent Cara Roberts, in a letter to Mayor Richard Alcombright and to iBerkshires, raised concerns over security and health.



"Let us not allow our children to allow privacy to become a thing of the past. Our duty is to educate and protect them, not to catalog them like merchandise," she wrote. "Our duty is to teach them to protect and care for their bodies. What message are we sending when we tell them their body is a means of identification, a tool for others to use to track them?"

She included to links to an article on Justia.com that delved into privacy and civil rights issues related the growing reliance on biometrics and one on ScientificAmerican.com about the use of biometrics in surveillance. Both articles more broadly discuss the use of digital fingerprints, palm prints and iris scans.



The technology being used in North Adams, from identiMetrics, does not register a fingerprint, but rather a pattern created by the intersection of unique elements of the print against a grid. The four points are then encrypted as binary numbers and that's what's stored and compared each time the finger is scanned later.



"The software cannot recreate the fingerprint itself because it does not store the fingerprint," said identiMetrics President and CEO Raymond J. Fry. In fact, the system doesn't have the server space to store hundreds or thousands of digital fingerprints, he said.



The former Chicago principal and administrator said he understood parent fears and it was because of his experience with children and concerns about safety that the company's product is designed to ensure their privacy and security.



"I've had these conversations for 10 years," he said on Wednesday. "It's not new technology, and it's not new to school districts."



Fry tells school districts to make sure parents are informed of how the technology works and to give them the option not to participate — both of which North Adams as done, although some parents are saying they should have been asked permission first, not after the fact.



North Adams may be the first in Massachusetts, but biometrics is being used by schools in more than 40 states, said Fry. Some 75 percent of schools in West Virginia use the technology to track usage in their libraries and cafeteria and for student attendance.



The reason the technology is catching on is because pressing a finger on a reader for a few seconds is both faster and more accurate than swipe cards or pin numbers, said Nicholas.

