Students and faculty at Harrison Street Elementary School just love the new thumbprint scanner in the school’s lunch line, but civil rights experts are warning parents about serious privacy concerns with the technology. The Geneva Unit District 304 replaced a different biometric scanner system for school lunch lines this year with devices from a local company, PushCoin Inc., that read students’ thumb prints to track their accounts, the Daily Herald reports.
“It’s good, because you don’t have to carry your own money or anything like that,” fifth-grader Quinlan Bobeczko told the news site. “It’s just there. Your thumb is easy, because you just have to put your thumb on (the device).” Officials in several area school districts are watching District 304 in hopes of installing similar devices in their schools. READ MORE
