Are Biometic Tools in Your School’s Future?

You’ve seen businesses where employees submit hand scans before they can enter a building. But what about “hand geometry” and other biotech scanners for schools?  Will they work? Are they practical? Some schools, like Academy of Appleton in Wisconsin, are already using them. The scanners can be used for security at entrances, for library check out, for cafeteria purchases, to track student attendance, and much more. There are fingerprint scanners, facial recognition systems, voice print technologies, and even ID solutions that can recognize people by their voices or the way they move. An article in T.H.E. Journal (October 2009) says that technologies like hand scanners can be a problem when used with growing kids. Fingerprint scanners work better, except when fingers are simply too tiny. All this is mostly in the testing stages for schools, but the promise is there. Personal identification would certainly be easier than having kids carry around ID or security cards. Can you imagine how many of them would be lost or borrowed? But as, the T.H.E article explains, the kids will always have their traits and biological parts with them.