You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to think this is a bad idea.

We launched this petition because we heard from parents that they were scared. Two elementary schools in the Peninsula School District in Washington will be piloting the program soon, and they're making the process "opt-out" rather than "opt-in." That means hundreds of kids will be giving up their biometric fingerprints (and data about their dietary choices) to an unaccountable private company, without informed consent. Sodexo is moving forward with this plan, even though two years ago a judge said they had violated students' privacy using a similar program in Arizona.

It's only a matter of time before law enforcement agencies start trying to subpoena this fingerprint data from schools and companies. We already know that -- through the NSA -- the government is able to access data stored by nearly any private company. It's frightening to think that fingerprint scanning technology could become common-place. Having biometric scanning machines in elementary schools makes this kind of invasive technology seem normal, and will have a chilling effect on our freedoms.