Fingerprinting. Goodbye!

[p858snake]

I know what cards are like in the hands of students.... I was one (and mine met death by drill press). Cost of replacement cards could be charged to the student since they are already getting the first one for free. As for the cost of printer, there isn't a new one needed every year, so even though that is a overall cost you only pay for it once then depreciate the cost over several years till a new one is needed.

 

And for those concerned about information privacy (eg: the "fingerprint") magswipe/rfid wouldn't need that information, just certain data about the user (eg: a id number).

[PiqueABoo]

Think I'll depart from this thread with a rant:

 

Reflecting on all this, amongst other things I think there's probably a correlation with age and risk perception e.g. the first time I went to Berlin it was to visit a friend, who was a Russian defector's daughter and thus could ever only fly in/out if she didn't want to be (at best) "involuntarily repatriated", and people still got shot sometimes when trying to climb over that wall. So the wall came down and by-and-by with a massive amount of irony, countries like this one have managed to implement the kind of apparatus to make the GDR and ther ilk look like hopeless wanabees. We pretty much topped the state surveillance league last time they made one, second only to Russia, China and Malaysia. That is not something anyone in this country should be remotely content with. Assurances that there are checks and balances and we're all decent Brits who would never ever abuse this stuff are not enough - history has demonstrated over and over that pretty much anything that exists inevitably gets abused.

 

So it's better to avoid this stuff in the first place wherever possible, but there some of you are justifying it with smokescreen threat-models and exaggerated claims of convenience. That so many schools are apparently so arrogant, or more likely so pig-ignorant, to march straight past the huge ethical difficulties and sensitivities here clutching light-weight fluff about the threats, and points and numbers which doubtless came straight off some vendor's glossy promotional leaflet, is appalling. With yet more massive irony, at the same time as you're blathering on about e-safety you're smugly conditioning our kids to surrender their privacy to technology for very trivial reasons => **FAIL**

 

Right now if I were a fingerprinting school I'd consider doing some proper homework, because if this actually does hit the legislative list with any bite left it will then become much more 'topical' and I suspect you'll really going to need to know what you're talking about.

Edited May 14, 2010 by PiqueABoo

[ZeroHour]

Having thought about this all I have to say ultimately I see it all as unnessary. I know there have been statements about speed benefits (at canteen) but tbh its certainly not an issue at my school and reaslistically it takes seconds to get through the till using cash or voucher. I dont see the extra expense (and lets face it there is going to be a lot of that) to try and cure a non issue. I think it may speed things up slightly but not enough to see a good ROI. This is all before you take in to account how easy it would be to theive if you had an honesty till to run things up, or would it be propesed you scan at each stage (aka getting main meal) which also would have great expense and delay for people to get scanned and moved on. I know in an ideal world the scanners will work perfectly... but lets face it they will get gunked up, kids will happen to affect one of those *magic* number areas with a deep cut etc which all slows it down to pointless and further reducing the ROI.

Then where else could you use the print... computer logins (big expense/vandalism) door access (OMG networking/readers on each door £££!!) and libraries (still a cost for readers).

I know its a pain reseting logins for pupils but come on, its not worth the cash for finger prints, no one could kid that ROI on to the SMT. Also it would be a stuggle to see any real benefits other then this tbh, you could say no shared accounts with that but thats pretty much it and its a weak benefit.

Door access is simply too much pain/cost for readers everywhere, RFID is cheaper I believe here by a LONG way and thats why no one does prints yet, there is no ROI.

Libraries have no real benefit for us with prints, its simply not an issue. We have a simple system where if the librarien does not know the pupil he says his name, a pic popups up, job done and our libraries soon pick up the names (1000 roll senior) or those that use the library regularily (which is where greatest speed can be gained) and for those they dont its simple.... and cheap.... and no issues with prints aggro.

For us at least, most of the benefits I have seen listed simply are not issues that warrent the cost of doing this for so little and so much extra aggro. To those of you that have got around and even found a proper ROI (calcualtions/etc would be very good to see) good luck but imo prints are pointless and unneeded so the whole *should your school* debate is mute for us as we would need to have a point in the first place.

 

One thing though, THERE IS NO ENCRYPTION THAT CANT BE BROKEN IN THEORY! The prints are not *secure/unreversable* by a long shot as I am sure some of you must know (esp if you actually do programming)

Those number based ones sound tbh like a joke, feed it enough samples and I could get its algorithm.... We should all know better then this....

Edited May 18, 2010 by ZeroHour

[Mr.Ben]

I've just found out that the new BSF build up the road has a completely card based system, but more interestingly, the cards will cost £15 to replace (to be funded by the parents!)

 

I can't see that working for those on limited incomes!

[creese]

I've just found out that the new BSF build up the road has a completely card based system, but more interestingly, the cards will cost £15 to replace (to be funded by the parents!)

 

I can't see that working for those on limited incomes!

 

If my geographical guess is correct, there are I believe at least 3 schools in your area with card based systems.

[plexer]

Whilst this is an old thread it still contains relevant information and I also want to point out this Protection of Freedoms Act 2010-12 — UK Parliament which has recently gained royal assent and schools must obtain parental before obtaining biometric information.

 

Ben

[plexer]

To add a bit more information to this whilst the bill has got royal assent it looks like it will be Sept 2013 before it becomes law with the DFE doing a consulation on its implementation in schools.

 

Ben

[shadowx]

Old thread is old... And full of crap, but nonetheless just to add my 3.5 pence...

 

We got our biometrics last week, aside from my other thread regarding the costs of it I think it is a good system, and believe me, I'm not easily pleased. But let's look at the FACTS of the system..

It stores data as a hash/checksum/whathaveyou, their site (biostore) describe it like putting an overlay over a map of London, putting a dot on the train stations then taking the original map away leaving you with a number of dots. You can't possibly recreate the map based purely on those dots, but obviously putting a map of London underneath and seeing the dots match up would confirm a match but putting Paris under there would give a mismatch.

 

Based on that fact you can have all the fingerprints you want, I wouldn't even hesitate to zip them all up and email them to you (Other than the fact that the borough, government, papers, school etc... would need new pants due to their lack of understanding) The point is that the hashes are useless to you. The only way you can use them is to install the same system with the same readers with the same algorithms with the same salt (I am assuming a salt is used) and then scan the finger print of every student until you get a match (Oh, and scan every finger too) even if you were to achieve that the matching algorithms are too inaccurate to be used in a court of law, so what are you going to so? Set up your own cashless catering system, enrol all of our students against their wishes then force them to buy your overly prices bagels so you can take the money from their accounts? Lolz...

 

It does speed things up, maybe not by loads and loads but it is noticeable.

 

Our card printer takes about 45 seconds to print an individual card, given that in year 7 we have around 130-150 cards to print not to mention the new year 10s who get a new photo (another 130 odd) and the people who have lost cards (20-30) you are saving so many work hours... Oh and cards and ribbon cost a BOMB to buy.

 

When a card is broken or lost a student has to pay £3.50 for a new one (except for FSM etc...)

 

Cards can be stolen by other kids, or shared so that little timmy who is all of a sudden "very big" timmy can spend a fiver a day on sweets using his mates card without his parents knowing

 

Expensive? Well yes. Especially in our case. But if you shop around and plan well I imagine it pays for itself over a few years anyway in the cost of cards and ribbon for a card printer.

[plexer]

Does the software pop up a picture of the pupil on the till?

 

Ben

[john]

Does the software pop up a picture of the pupil on the till?

 

Ben

 

Yup it does on our Cashless System, so I put my first finger on and it brings up my hideous photo of me which is what is in Serco, Eclipse.Net and other programs that have photo integration It also does the photos for those on PIN Numbers or manual lookups so you can verify that the student is who they say they are.