School to fingerprint students to ‘monitor their diets’

a reply to: 2ndthought
Easier said than done, unless you happen to be lucky enough to have one parent making enough to support the family, or work out of your home.

originally posted by: Helious

originally posted by: WeAre0ne
I am surprised some of you don't cry about giving kids a first name and last name (ID) that they grow up with the rest of their lives. God forbid a school tracks your kid by their first and last name.

Inflammatory statements and pointless comparisons. You don't seem to grasp why some people wouldn't want their children to have to submit biometric data so their diets are tracked because you are a percentage of the population who figures you have nothing to hide so whats the big deal and you know what, thats fine, for you.

Others, those who have closely studied history and the oppression and tyranny that has risen up in nations once "free" understand the cumilitive effect that things like this have on one's overall freedom, personal liberty and privacy. You will find that at some point, your passive attitude will subside as the government crosses your own personal line in the sand with some new future policy and by the time you care, it will almost certainly be too late to do anything about it.

IMO, those words, Helious, are the truest I've heard in so very long. Thank you.

originally posted by: queenofsheba
There's always the other alternative of sending your kid to school with a cold lunch from home. My kids refused to eat the school's "hot" lunches because they said it was disgusting so I took them shopping and let them pick out things they liked and it was not a big deal at all. It wasn't easier than paying for the school's food but hey, it's what they wanted.

I would be so opposed to having my child getting fingerprinted for that purpose and apparently I'm not alone if it hasn't passed in the States; at least I've never heard of it and don't tell me it's "different" than a school I.D. which is simply a number. A fingerprint is like a tattoo, an identifying feature that will tag you for life.

Agreed. We've had it up here in south jersey for 4 years now. I do the same as you. Pack from home. Healthier IMO. My boys choose those new healthy lunchables, granola bars, vitamin waters....much better then the crap in school....once my son said he had to return his ham sandwich a few years ago because the ham was green & smelled funny, NO MORE BUYING!!!!! He got sick that weekend & I called the lunch room complaining. They ended up firing the head lunch lady cause she was taking all the good fresh food home to her family.

This is wrong on so many levels.
For those who don't see it I will only say this:
The purpose of tracking someone is to make sure that they do what they are supposed to do, what they are told. Is not for our own well being, as some naively believe.
Teachers monitor students in order to better control them. Corporations monitor their employs to make sure they work as they should and don't waste their money. Governments track the people for a million of dirty reasons. The banks and credit cards companies track us to know exactly how much they can sell us or how much blood to suck from us. The big internet brothers are tracking us for purposes of advertisement and some other dirty details. And so on and on and on.....

The biggest obsession of today's society seems to be monitoring. If nobody is monitoring them some people willl do it by themselves on Facebook or twitter or instagram. This why nobody is bothered by those little details like tracking a kid's every move and bite of food.

People in power track other people in order to control them, and that's the problem. You are tracked down? Then sooner or later you are bound to be controlled by those who track you.
That flies in the face of freedom and personal choice, don't you think?
We are recorded, tracked down, identified and classified in recorded data at every step we make. Are we safer? Are we happier? Are we healthier?
Or are we slowly becoming a race of sheeple?

Aldous Huxley was simply a genius; the "brave new world" is the only prediction I've seen fulfilled so far , and I'm sure that it will keep becoming reality until the last detail.

a reply to: WhiteHat

Yep. "People in power track other people in order to control them, and that's the problem. You are tracked down? Then sooner or later you are bound to be controlled by those who track you.
That flies in the face of freedom and personal choice, don't you think?
We are recorded, tracked down, identified and classified in recorded data at every step we make. Are we safer? Are we happier? Are we healthier?
Or are we slowly becoming a race of sheeple?" ....I'm going to make my "ugggh" face and say "Yes, yes we are.." Nobody in their right mind (unless with billions of $ of funding) would tell you that you are not (voluntarily submitting to) giving important biological markers.(to those in power).
Like, seriously. Y'all watch movies - "Hunger Games", "Defiance", "Snowpiercer" - you can't "GET" this??

wow.....what is 'zee' term...mind went kaboom? thank you for that...I guess I needed it also, I'd like a minute of your time whenever possible! a reply to: WeAre0ne

My son has just began secondary school and they already use the biometric system.

As far as I can tell it has been in place for the last couple of years and as far as I can tell, the information is mainly for my use, so that I can monitor what my son is eating at school.

It's quite good actually, I can get a breakdown on a day to day basis, so I can blast him when he isn't making sensible eating choices, plus no longer can you get beaten up for your lunch money!

Of course, I have not blindly followed into this system, truth is we had very little choice, as we were told it would be difficult to pay for lunch any other way (in other words they have got rid of all the tools for normal payment).

I have firmly drilled it into my son....whatever you do, don't commit a criminal act, be good, as you are now probably on a system which would make you identifiable far more readily than if you weren't biometrically logged.

I don't agree with the system, but I am not seeing it abused either.

originally posted by: 2ndthought

originally posted by: hopenotfeariswhatweneed
really...far out...home schooling is looking better and better everyday

You're not yet??

I'm sorry if that sounds flippant, but I hear words to that effect way to much to take seriously anymore. If you think it's sounding better and better, you should have already started homeschooling. And then not have the need to make the comment.

my boy is only 4 ...so he is in day care 2 days a week and will be for another year and a half....i have plenty of time to decide what to do...but thx for your concern

a reply to: solargeddon

"Of course, I have not blindly followed into this system, truth is we had very little choice, as we were told it would be difficult to pay for lunch any other way (in other words they have got rid of all the tools for normal payment)." That to me is a RED flag. I grew up in the 70's and nobody cared what I ate. I am a productive, not faat member of society. My big flaws are my stubbornness and willingness to submit to stupid rules imposed by them. If you are an attentive parent - you don't need this.

a reply to: EveStreet

I'm not sure questioning my attentiveness as a parent is necessary, my son quite willingly volunteers the information to me, that said, he also knows I can find out, yet that said he has always come out of school and talked about his day, many parents aren't so lucky.

It isn't just school dinners where communication has become more joined up, secondary school in general has become more accessible to parents...you can find out their attendance, their behaviour, their homework and their marks online, which is a good thing.

When I was at secondary school, very little to no information was available to parents on a day to day, or even a year to year basis, since the advent of the internet becoming the norm it has opened up a system where you can be included in your child's day to day life, which is no bad thing, given how perilous secondary school can be.

You could be the most attentive parent in the world, when little Johnny steps out of the front door in the morning you have lost control until they step back through it.

You just have to hope they are making good choices...which I can proudly say so far so good!

Just to give an different perspective, my daughter who is at primary and is a chunk of a girl, doesn't have this system, but then the menu is resticted.

Just this morning I have renewed my plea to the school not to force her to eat what she doesn't want to, it isn't like she is going to fade away.

I can only hope they have listened to me, because like I said, there is only so much you can do when they are not with you.

I don't like the biometric system, I worry it will overstep its advertised function, but my kid has got to eat.

They did this at my stepdaughters school a few years ago as a replacement for libary cards.

The school was very put out when we asked for the consent form so we could refuse it.

This sort of thing is being done in a prison system in the US. Not with a fingerprint though.

Staff are noting dietary preferences.

America has gone off the deep end of ridiculous.

Edit to add that I now "sign" for all my health care with an electronic palm print. I have no choice if I want treatment.

Hey, i'm sorry but i've only hand the chance to read up to the end of page one so far but thought i'd contribute that my sons old school (which, according to Google maps, is 24 miles from the school in the op) introduced this monitoring approx 3 years ago.

I must say good for him but my son was against it from the start!

As far as cashless goes we would have had to send him in with a weeks (poss a months (Soz, I can't remember which)) worth of dinner money at a time for him to participate and then each time he would have had his fingerprint read it would have deducted that days charge. So yes it was cashless SOME days but every once in a while it was quite the opposite!

This was at a high school (ages 11-16 in this case).

a reply to: WeAre0ne
Your mighty easy finger print technology has been and is still been bypassed with less then 20$/€ of material in a matter of minutes. the chaos computer club in germany did this over a decade ago.

For example the new iphone with its fingerprint sensor. Fingerprints will be are all over the phone, it´s like printing the shape of the key on the front side of the lock to your house door. And on the last iphone (not the newest, think it has not been tested yet) this worked nearly every time.

Also, is it not some privacy issue what they eat and not eat?


SOURCE: dasalte.ccc.de...
have fun

a reply to: neoholographic

Don't you just love how England always seems to piggyback on America or vice versa?
Ferguson is fingerprinting the kids as a "feel good day with the cops" or "bonding with your local PD that sieged your town" and England is fingerprinting to "count your calories and being cool at it".

And Soylent Green is people.

a reply to: ArchPlayer
You mean this stuff?

a reply to: neoholographic

Well Op, you talked about the food but didn't mention the elephant in the room.

Why allow a school system to have on file copies of all the kids fingerprints? There is ripe opportunity here for identity theft and or misuse of the prints. How about the cops? The school gonna hand out prints to the cops so they can better determine if a kid is a suspect?

I hope you guys over there are fighting this. In America, we would not stand for this crap.

originally posted by: TKDRL
a reply to: ArchPlayer
You mean this stuff?

Ha Ha no, I mean those "wonderful plankton crackers" made from the stuff of Edward G Robinson, lol.

originally posted by: JohnPhoenix
a reply to: neoholographic

Well Op, you talked about the food but didn't mention the elephant in the room.

Why allow a school system to have on file copies of all the kids fingerprints? There is ripe opportunity here for identity theft and or misuse of the prints. How about the cops? The school gonna hand out prints to the cops so they can better determine if a kid is a suspect?

I hope you guys over there are fighting this. In America, we would not stand for this crap.

I call BS. Check my post about Ferguson's Fingerprint day. We do far more and on a much clandestine system than England. But hey, cousins are teaching each other.

Not everyone's fingerprints are in the system. But you don't have to be arrested for your fingerprints to be in the system. Millions of people who have never been arrested have their fingerprints in the system as a result of working for federal, state or local governments, or government contractors.

Also, unless things have changed, isn't it against the law to forcibly maintain a database of everyone's DNA or fingerprints? Yet here we are where schools do it for "dietary reasons" and it's on file forever and shared with the police no doubt and you cannot "opt out".

Remember, police collect fingerprints at crime scenes and that they keep those prints, even if they belong to someone who had nothing (provable) to do with that particular crime.

buhbut nothing to hiiiide!!! 11