Fingerprint school lunch programs raise concern

AKRON, Ohio - Several Ohio schools are identifying students who receive free or reduced-price school lunches by fingerprint -- a high-tech system that has been praised by school officials, but also questioned because of privacy concerns.

Akron Public School district leaders say the adoption of the system, dubbed iMeal, has resulted in more middle-school students taking advantage of free or reduced-price lunches because they don't have to hand over a ticket that identifies them as low income.

"What we've accomplished is taking that stigma away," said Debra Foulk, coordinator of the Akron schools' Child Nutrition Services.

But some have raised concerns about privacy issues.

"Fingerprinting is for felons not for 5-year-olds," said Christine Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. "We're setting up for children that surrendering your fingerprints or other parts of your identity for school lunches is a good idea."

Link said there's also the issues of identity theft or the prints being misused by law enforcement.

"If Akron schools has every child's fingerprint on file, think how tempting that is to law enforcement," Link said.

Rocky River School District officials had concerns about the system, but adopted it after determining they could maintain students' privacy, superintendent Dennis Allen said.

He said the system streamlines lunch lines, eliminates cash transactions and benefits students who receive free or reduced lunches in the suburban Cleveland district.

"They just go through like any other student," Allen said.

The iMeal system includes touch-screen registers, software and fingerprint-imaging scanners. Students' fingerprints are put into a scanner that makes a template of numbers corresponding with the unique swirls and arches of each print.

When students go through the lunch line, they place their finger on a scanner that identifies them based on the stored template.

Akron schools keep only a template of each student's fingerprint and deletes the original. Parents who do not want their children fingerprinted may obtain an opt-out form.

Students have the option of using personal identification numbers rather than fingerprints. Foulk said about 4 percent of the students have chosen that option.

Akron schools spent $700,000 on the new cafeteria system with the money coming from the district's meal program budget, which pays for itself.

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