If it works for the office, why wouldn’t it work in schools?

Andrea Wood | September 06, 2006, 10:25 AM

In many offices, employees are issued with key cards to access the premises. In more secure locations, personnel are required to scan a fingerprint or an eye. So, if offices require such extensive security, why don’t schools? A local primary school requires parents to deliver their children to the door monitor each morning. The door monitor checks the child’s name on a list, and allows the child to enter. A friend once asked once the school didn’t issue RFID tags so the kids could simply scan themselves in and out of the school’s care each day. I laughed, but it doesn’t seem that far fetched anymore. A Georgia-based school system introduced a fingerprint scanning system not for security, but as a payment mechanism. Children scan their fingers to access their pre-paid account, and avoid the time-honoured tradition of bullying for lunch money.

A fingerprint scanning system could certainly increase the security of a school and its students. The same system could also replace the need for passwords on the school computers, and track PC-use activity. Sure, bullying could lead to misuse of accounts (a child could be forced to scan a fingerprint so a peer can get up to trouble), but a fingerprint scanning system in a school could really unify the electronic experience. Of course, those pesky consent issues will prevent a simplified system like this from working.