Finger Scanning in Schools Raises Concerns

MA district nixes biometrics plan while technology spreads in schools nationwide

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2007

The Taunton School District in Massachusetts has canceled plans to install a controversial fingerprint-scanning program in its lunchroom, raising further questions about whether biometrics should be used in schools at all.

Hundreds of districts across the country already use fingerprint scanners to check out books in media centers, take attendance, and speed up lines in cafeterias—and that number is expected to rise into the thousands by this summer, says Anne Marie Dunphy, vice president of identiMetrics, a leading provider of the technology to schools.

The school library at Sandlapper Elementary School in South Carolina, for example, installed a finger-scanning system when it opened last August. Media specialist Ashley Paddock says only three out of 550 students don’t participate in the program because their parents have privacy concerns, but, overall, the technology is “awesome.” “It gives the children a lot more autonomy, and you don’t have to create library cards, which need replacing if they get lost,” says Paddock, who adds that teachers can now devote more time to teaching. “I wouldn’t want to go back to traditional checkout methods.”

While many districts take pride in the fact that the scanners free up time, make record-keeping more efficient, and give the appearance that schools are hi-tech, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and parents are more concerned that fingerprints can be stolen and used to commit identity theft or some other type of fraud.

Sarah Wunsch, an attorney with the ACLU of Massachusetts, worked hard to get Taunton’s superintendent of schools to abandon plans to install the voluntary program in four elementary and two middle schools. “Used properly, biometric data might help to improve security—but the last thing we should do is teach parents and their children, starting from a young age, to be casual about turning over biometric data for the sake of convenience,” Wunsch says.

The Boulder Valley Public Schools in Colorado and the Irvine Unified School District in California also backed away from the plan after parents complained of its Big Brother effect.

But Dunphy of identiMetrics says all the fear is based on misinformation. Biometrics, the science of using physiological or behavioral characteristics, such as someone’s face or handwriting, to identify them, is already used at airports and even in grocery stores. Actual fingerprints are never stored because the scanner plots points on a fingerprint and converts them to an encrypted number, which identifies a student. “You cannot go backward and re-create a fingerprint because all you have are dots,” Dunphy explains. And unlike five years ago, when the technology was relatively new in schools, Dunphy says her company’s scanners can be used on children as young as three years old. At about $1,000 for the hardware and software, it’s also affordable for school libraries, she adds.

Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director for the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office of Intellectual Freedom, says ALA is “always concerned about any new technology that could compromise any individual’s privacy.”