California School District to Fingerprint Students?

The Associated Press reported today on a plan by a California school district to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch.

Hope Elementary School District has notified parents that, beginning this month, students at Monte Vista, Vieja Valley and Hope elementary schools will press an index finger to a scanner before they are able to buy cafeteria food. The scan will identify the student's name and student ID, teacher's name and how much the student owes, since some receive government assistance for food.

"It raises sanitary issues, privacy issues — it is kind of Orwellian," said Tina Dabby, a parent of two at Monte Vista Elementary. "It just sounds kind of creepy."

The current process allows for information to be written on paper and transferred to computer so reports can be compiled and sent to state and federal government agencies, which reimburse school districts for the subsidized lunches served. School officials claim that the idea is meant to speed up cafeteria lines.

"It's so archaic to transfer something from a sheet of paper to a computer day-by-day," Hope schools Superintendent Gerrie Fausett told a local newspaper.

A similar procedure is already in use in the Santa Barbara School Districts, where students punch a six-digit number into a keypad that calls up their name, photograph and other details, including whether they have food allergies.