[Cody Dawg]

Link.

When a parent arrives to pick up their child at one of three grade schools in the Freehold Borough School District, they'll need to look into a camera that will take a digital image of their iris. That photo will establish positive identification to gain entrance into the school.

I'm not sure what I think.

On the one hand I think it's great. It protects my child.

On the other hand, I think it's intrusive and wonder how far eye scanning will be carried into the public forum. Meaning, what's next?

[tooki]

I find that appalling. Schools should be schools, not prison fortresses. What horrible values does that instill in a child. I can think of a few, one being to have zero trust in anyone.

Furthermore, what problem is this huge expenditure supposed to fix? Its purpose is to prevent outsiders from entering the school. Has this been a problem? I've never thought of schools as places that people want to be if they don't have to.

This seems to me like the biometrics industry pushing a "solution" for a problem that didn't exist. Creating this solution, on the other hand, suddenly makes it necessary, thanks to the FUD it instills in people...

tooki

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

Meaning, what's next?

Mandatory visit of the Lounge ?

-t

[Cody Dawg]

Yeah, I agree tooki.

I think I would find it too intrusive if all of a sudden I got a letter telling me to show up for my "iris scan."



If someone wants to get into a school they will - unless the school is built to look like a prison with concertina wire at the tops of the fences. And then it's not a school anymore. It's a prison.

And I don't want my kids there anymore.

[andi*pandi]

it's creepy all right.

[ReggieX]

Another stupid, expensive, tech-heavy solution to a different problem.

[Cody Dawg]

Now, if they would do EYE CHECKS at the same time then...



Just joking.

[Doofy]

Originally Posted by Cody Dawg

I think I would find it too intrusive if all of a sudden I got a letter telling me to show up for my "iris scan."

This is what the commie government here is trying to do with the proposed introduction of biometric ID cards. We'll need one to do just about anything.

Right. Must shoot. Got to go phone the government to ask them if it's OK if I go watch TV for an hour.

[Kerrigan]

Government employees and bureaucrats are typically quite arrogant and stubborn about everything, so if they decide that schools need iris scans, I highly doubt they will back-pedal. And I think that losing a child is one of the few things that can get an administrator fired, so that is probably also behind this decision.

[cpt kangarooski]

Bad. Very bad.

Biometrics tend to be easy to fool (e.g. hold up a fake eye, or just set up a man in the middle that changes the FAIL message sent by the scanner into a SUCCESS message before someone sees it), and yet also hard to get to work at times (what happens if you have pinkeye, develop cataracts, lose an eye, get laser correction, use contacts that interfere with the scan, etc.). That is, they're plagued by false positives and false negatives.

Biometrics are irrevocable. Let's say that someone does manage to fake your eye and can fool the scanner. You can't get rid of your eye, and you can't magically convince the other guy to stop fooling the scanner, so you're basically just screwed. Either both of you can be allowed to get the kid, or neither of you can be. This is not a problem with codes (change the code) or keys (change the key).

Spreading biometrics runs a risk of a dangerous monoculture. Let's say that your ATM, computer passwords, voter id, etc. all work with the same thing. If someone gets the information from one of them, now you're screwed for all of them. And since you can't revoke your eye, you're really screwed.

Overreliance on fancy technology can result in greater vulnerabilities. If they think that their scanner is the best thing since sliced bread then they won't be suspicious of it and won't take care to make sure that it's working properly. Thus, while it might be a little tricky to get past it, once I do, I'm golden. This is unlike a security model where weaknesses are acknowledged, and security is nested; just because you can get past one locked door doesn't mean that the rest won't also be locked, with different locks. Putting all your eggs in one basket is foolish.

There's another failure mode as well, that's specific to this case. Let's say that I am asked to do this when I go to pick up my kid. I will absolutely refuse because I won't tolerate this kind of crap. Now what? Will the school keep my kid overnight? If so, and I'm a deadbeat parent, then I'm happy to let them keep them every night. And I don't mind that it's at their expense. Will they give me the kid anyway? If so, then what the hell was the point of the scanner, if I can just convince them to ignore it. If I can, anyone can. Do they fall back on another kind of ID? If so, same situation. Rather than deal with a relatively hard to defeat scanner, I can just use a simple fake driver's license.

Generally, the people who implement these sorts of things tend to be total incompetents when it comes to security. Recently there was a prison that used fingerprint scanners. The inmates had the run of the place, because they figured out how to easily defeat them. (it's not that hard) The prison staff had no idea until somebody talked. Because they put faith in a fancy solution, they actually lost all control for a while. Traditional methods would have been better. A cautious rollout of the new technology, and an awareness of its flaws, would also have been better. But that almost never seems to happen.

Then of course, it's intrusive. It'll probably be abused to spy on people somehow. I would much rather take the risk of relying on live human beings that know the kids and know the parents personally. I don't trust machines on their own so much.

So Cody says she likes it because it would protect her child? Well, that faith is probably misplaced. I bet it exposes her child to greater risk than traditional methods do. If she really wanted to protect her kid, she would look beyond the flashy technology.

[ghporter]

This may be in response to someone walking off with someone else's kid. That's BAD in the worst way. If it takes some super high tech identification technology to say "this is indeed Mr. Smith, and he can take Johnny Smith home," then there's something else going on-something much broader than the school having problems with who checks out what kid.

I had to show my ID once (that's one time) to check my son out of his high school. They sent a runner for him while I waited in the attendance office, and when he showed up, I signed the roster saying we were going to a medical appointment, and all was well. He had more than adequate opportunity to say "that's not my dad" or "I don't want to go with him because..." They also had a record (the roster) of who picked up what kid so they knew where and with whom the students were going.

As I recall, it was pretty much the same sort of thing at his middle and elementary schools. They had a record of who enrolled the kid (and probably who had legal custody in those cases where it mattered), and they allowed parents to identify two other adults who could also check out their children. Isn't a valid photo ID (like a driver's license) good enough in the Feeehold school district? I mean the technology is very cool and interesting, but is it necessary to go through this level of verification to sign Johnny out to the dentist?

[andi*pandi]

I have found a drivers license, and a list of approved childpicker-uppers, is sufficient.