NIELS - Proposed biometric swipe cards for the school cafeteria are causing concern among Niles parents. The school district has scheduled a community meeting at 6:30 p.m. Nov.3 in the high school to answer questions about the fingerprint-based system.

“This falls under protection of privacy,” said parent MaryLou Stumpf. “I have no object to having the name, picture and home room on an identity card. But I do object to the fingerprint.”

The cards use biometric identification, a representative of Zerco systems International said at presentation last November about the proposed system.
Students’ fingerprints are scanned, and then a computer program uses specific parts of the fingerprints to generate individual numbers. Those numbers are used to identify the student’s account in a school database.

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