Big Brother and Uncle Sam are fingerprinting kids in grade school cafeterias!

by AP Monday, Nov. 06, 2006 at 9:52 AM

A plan to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch has some parents worrying that Big Brother has come to the cafeteria.

Three Santa Barbara elementary schools to fingerprint students
Associated Press

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - A plan to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch has some parents worrying that Big Brother has come to the cafeteria.

The 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 buying cafeteria food.

The scan will call up 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."

School administrators said the idea is to speed up the cafeteria line. The same information is currently handled with old-fashioned paper and then transferred to computer so that reports can be compiled.

The annual reports are sent to the state and federal governments, which reimburse school districts for the subsidized lunches served.

"It's so archaic to transfer something from a sheet of paper to a computer day by day," Hope schools Superintendent Gerrie Fausett told the Santa Barbara News-Press.

A similar procedure already is 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 any food allergies.


http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-print5nov05,1,5559469.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california

Fingerprint plan worries parents
From the Associated Press
November 5, 2006


SANTA BARBARA — A plan to fingerprint elementary school students when they buy lunch has some parents worrying that Big Brother has come to the cafeteria.

The Hope Elementary School District has notified parents that students at Monte Vista, Vieja Valley and Hope elementary schools will press an index finger to a scanner before buying cafeteria food. The scan will call up the student's name and ID, teacher's name and how much the student owes, because some children 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.

School administrators said the idea is to speed up the cafeteria line.

http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5635733&nav=0s3d

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. Some parents are worried about a plan to start fingerprinting youngsters at three elementary schools in California

Beginning this month, children at the schools in the Santa Barbara area will press an index finger to a scanner when they buy food at the cafeteria. The scan calls up the student's name and I-D, teacher's name and how much the student owes. Some children pay different amounts because they have government food assistance.

The district has to submit reports to the state and federal governments in order to be reimbursed for meals. The superintendent says fingerprint scanning simply speeds up a system that currently relies on pencil and paper.

But some parents are leery. One calls it "Orwellian" and "kind of creepy."