Fingerprinting Students

giorgia · Post by **giorgia** » 11 Nov 2009, 13:31

hello, in my college, they have just introduced a new system in our canteen. its called Cashless Catering, and we have to scan our fingerprint and have money deducted from an online account as opposed to paying in cash. (students aged 11-16) i am highly opposed to this - what do people think?

poomlie · Post by **poomlie** » 11 Nov 2009, 14:35

Sounds a bit creepy and Big Brotherly to moi.

ryan2 · Post by **ryan2** » 11 Nov 2009, 15:11

The Cub Foods by my house has this. It does feel creepy to me as well.

andr70 · Post by **andr70** » 12 Nov 2009, 10:30

We don't have such things in my country, would be interesting to try, I think

giorgia · Post by **giorgia** » 13 Nov 2009, 03:15

it IS creepy... i had to write a letter in to be exempt from the scheme. maybe one day actual money will be non existent...

Moore · Post by **Moore** » 13 Nov 2009, 09:21

I think it's strange for a canteen to have such a complicated system. I agree it's creepy and uncomfortable on the other hand. For it's not usual to give my finger prints. I'd feel as if i've committed a crome.

poomlie · Post by **poomlie** » 13 Nov 2009, 12:01

giorgia wrote:it IS creepy... i had to write a letter in to be exempt from the scheme. maybe one day actual money will be non existent...

I suppose we are headed that way with debit cards, which I use all the time. Call me old fashioned but I think I would strongly resist using my fingerprint to pay for things.

giorgia · Post by **giorgia** » 14 Nov 2009, 07:47

just the fact that it is an infringement on our basic human rights to force us to exchange biometric information for food!

annalaurabrown · Post by **annalaurabrown** » 17 Nov 2009, 09:48

yuck. I think you should start a petition against it.

giorgia · Post by **giorgia** » 17 Nov 2009, 13:27

i did, and i was told if i have a problem with it i can leave school premises during lunch break.

The Mythwriter · Post by **The Mythwriter** » 18 Nov 2009, 13:27

My college does pretty much the same thing, only with our student I.D. The cards do everything from acting as a local credit card to letting us into dorms or other locked facilities if we have authorization. Since all my data is tied to it, I suppose it's one step down from the fingerprint idea.

Sounds a bit extreme, but in perspective I don't think it's much worse than anything else. They have all your personal information anyway, which you gave to them. Indeed, if all fingerprint records were on public file, perhaps it would be easier to track down criminals.

giorgia · Post by **giorgia** » 18 Nov 2009, 14:34

what do you feel about people being bullied into giving their information?>

The Mythwriter · Post by **The Mythwriter** » 19 Nov 2009, 00:28

giorgia wrote:what do you feel about people being bullied into giving their information?>

I don't know if you can call college policy bullying, they pretty much have to know everything about you. It's not 1984 in the sense that they're not tracking you for thought crime. I can understand how fingerprinting would cause paranoia, since you normally hear about that sort of thing on CSI drama shows. But if I think about it, it really doesn't matter... I mean, they have a fingerprint attached to my name, so what? They can do a lot less with that than they can a SSN, which colleges ALSO have.

ryan2 · Post by **ryan2** » 19 Nov 2009, 03:24

Fraud and identity aren't things that only happen on TV. TV might exploit fears of it, but it still is a very real problem. Finger printing is probably much safer than using checks or credit cards, but still I think convenient cashless systems create serious vulnerabilities. For example, all you need to clean out someone's life savings is the right bank and 10 numbers. I think that is scary. These are people that are in charge of managing all this information. Not all people are nice, and bank jobs are not difficult to get. As far as 1984 goes, aspects of it are happening all the time in the world.

Pinkpaper · Post by **Pinkpaper** » 19 Nov 2009, 18:11

I think the issue is not that they have your finger prints but what can they also use them for, eg whats stopping them from passing on that information? I mean what if the police wanted everyones finger prints because a crime was commited would you be happy with the polive having your fingerprints on record even though you have never commited a crime.

Here in the UK some employees from T-Mobile sold aload of ppls information on ok finger prints might not have the same monterey value as telephone numbers but the fact that then everyones bank details are connected online? Id be more worried about the security issue here.

God I sound like a paranoid freak here