School Installs Biometric Fingerprint System For Cafeteria 231
An anonymous reader writes with news about a school in England that has introduced a cashless cafeteria system that is raising some privacy concerns among some. Stourbridge students will soon be able to pay for their lunch without searching their pockets for change. Redhill School has spent £20,000 updating its dining facilities and introducing a cashless catering system. The system will allow parents to deposit funds into students catering accounts, to be debited by the pupil's biometric fingerprint scan at the point of sale. Headteacher Stephen Dunster said: "The benefits are that pupils are less likely to lose cash, parents know their children are using their dinner money to buy nutritious food and there will also be a system to alert staff if students are purchasing food that they may be allergic to."
while the current system is: (Score:1, Insightful)
biometric scanning of faces by a rent-a-cop's eyes and comparing it to a 2d-scan of that same face on a plastic card the students are holding up before his scanning eyes.
He'll everybody who was sick, who didn't eat their vegetables, who made out with whom and who ate 3 puddings although he's supposed to be on a diet.
He'll share it with the janitor, the cleaning ladies, his wife and their friends.
The costs, 20.000 is about the rent-a-cop's pay, so after the second year, there's a net benefit for the school t
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:5, Insightful)
If the students are required to carry their school-issued ID, that school-issued ID can serve as their payment card, and if there's a concern with fraud in the sense of a different student using the card, then add a PIN pad to the card reader. Mind you, at least in the elementary schools the lunch ladies know who's on free and reduced lunch, who has special diets, etc, so it would be harder for fraud by kids.
Or, cross-link the ID card system's picture database to the POS in the cafeteria, so that when the card is swiped, the picture comes up on-screen, and the lunch lady can see if the student paying is the student on the ID.
And as for elementary schools, at least around here the kids come as a class, and many times the lunch lady simply points to the kid's face on the touchscreen as the whole class is on-screen at one time, so the kid doesn't even need ID.
This fingerprint system seems like an overly complicated, overly invasive means to cover a couple bucks or equivalent-pounds worth of food every day.
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No, its about teachers having no friggen clue what their job is. What better life lesson is there than "Lose your money, you don't eat."?
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I knew it was the teachers fault.
Teachers are running the cafeteria now... what's next?... the school buses (they are death traps, I hear).
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:4, Informative)
No, its about teachers having no friggen clue what their job is.
Running the cafeteria is not the teacher's job.
What better life lesson is there than "Lose your money, you don't eat."?
At least in California, it is illegal for the school to let a child go hungry. If they don't have money in their account, then it goes into deficit, and they send emails nagging the parent. I know this because I forgot to fund my kid's account a few times. Most parents pay for the lunches on line, so very few kids have cash for bullies to steal.
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Yes, we can't have people learning to defend themselves from robbery, when the authorities have repeatedly ignored it (or threatened to punish both victim and aggressor in a 'zero tolerance' policy). I mean, if we have people who learn to take care of themselves, how are we supposed to be able to justify our sprawling police state?
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What's wrong with that?
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm confused - you said:
And then proceeded to list even more complicated means of solving the problem.
As it is, you can't 'forget' to bring your fingerprint with you, or lose it on the bus, or have it stolen. You can't "share" your fingerprints with your friends by handing them your id & telling them your PIN. And you don't rely on a harried, low-paid "lunch lady" to make a positive ID based on a grainy photo taken 6 months ago against the child who's grown 3 inches, gained 20 pounds, and changed their hair completely in last 3 months standing in front of them.
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:4, Informative)
A cafeteria would need a device of some kind in either system.
Existing POS software for school cafeterias already can cross-reference the enrollment records and photos.
Troubleshooting a system that's widely implemented beyond the cafeteria is also easier, as the people that maintain the ID database, the enrollment records database, and the POS system already exist. They'd either have to take-on new duties or would have to hire someone else.
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay - and? Have you ever looked at a photo of a child at the beginning and end of a 9-month school year? They grow fast, and change *dramatically* over the course of 9 months. If you have to perform a match between "little Johnny" today and a grainy photo of "little Johnny" 9 months ago, that's not as easy as you make it sound - especially when you have about 3 seconds or so to make that determination. And using a swiped ID card still doesn't address the problem of "I lost my ID," or "I forgot my ID at home," or "somebdy stole my ID on the bus / at recess."
Pretty hard to imagine "forgetting" your fingerprints... also hard to imagine no raised eyebrows if somebody walks up with a severed finger and tries to use that to pay.
Great, and nothing's stopping that from happening now - in addition to a photo record, the administration will take a fingerprint, and tie that to the student's records. Then at the cafeteria terminal, the student will present their finger (rather than a possibly-lost-or-stolen ID card).
Why? To attach a fingerprint scanner to the POS terminal, instead of a magnetic card reader? That's the ONLY difference in the system you're proposing - don't use fingerprints, use a card instead. The integration of these systems has to happen anyway, the token - be it a card or a fingerprint - has to be registered at the POS terminal. Except you can lose a card easily. Much harder to lose fingerprints - which means... the child is less likely to go hungry because they lost a card.
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Same department, actually, and yes, I have. When new students are enrolled, the student information system exports changes nightly, and those changes are imported into the ID system and the school is notified to take the picture and generate the ID. If the student qualifies for Title I free/reduced lunch, the export from the student system creates the record for the scho
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:4, Insightful)
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Existing POS software for school cafeterias already can cross-reference the enrollment records and photos.
What exactly makes you think it's piece-of-shit software?
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and possibly more importantly (to the parents) the kids can't go tot he local fast food joint and have burger and chip for lunch every day.
For £20k though, the school could have just asked the parents to fund a lunch account of roughly the amount each kid costs to feed. Then they wouldn't have to give them lunch money and the kids would get lunch without having to bother with money.
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As it is, you can't 'forget' to bring your fingerprint with you, or lose it on the bus, or have it stolen.
You can have your fingerprint stolen, although that's unlikely for school lunches. You can also lose your fingerprint from simple mechanical wear or chemicals. You can also simply not have fingerprints to start with.
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But there's no fingerprint, not picture, nothing to feed to big data some place. There must be control. Having a child outside of the system means an aberration. We must have no aberration. All must be tracked. There might be as much as $2.20 in theft! Imagine-- not eating those nutritious lunches, packed with carbs and "brain food"!
I've been fond of "up the system". Fingerprints. Yeesh.
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:5, Informative)
Jr year (2002-2002) the security guards started not allowing students in without showing ID. Now, the security guard knew damn near every kid in school (we had a full HS of under 500 people) but no student was allowed in without the id.
Tell me, what good reason is there for that other than getting the students more used to submitting to authority? If the security guard didnt know the student fine, but if he did he STILL had to check every single ID.
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Students aren't required to show their ID to enter the school, but if they're asked for their ID and cannot produce it then they have to go through another annoying process in addition to whatever else happened that caused someone to ask for their ID in the first place
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It's because if some weirdo got in the school the parents would sue the school district into submission. With the guard and the practice in place, they have a scapegoat. That's the thing.
Your whole "submitting to authority" bent makes you sound like this is something frequently on your mind, which might be something you should get checked out. You sound paranoid to fuck.
Re:Not about ease, about authority (Score:4, Interesting)
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So if a new child comes in and isn't in a class photo, then what? Bring the professional photographer back in at more expense to the school and inconvenience to the class? or worse: What if the cafeteria worker is having a bad day and decides to point at the wrong kid, draining money from the wrong account to punish the bad kid's parents?
Fingerprint readers aren't any more invasive than School IDs but they do reduce liability and responsibility of the staff.
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What if the cafeteria worker is having a bad day and decides to point at the wrong kid, draining money from the wrong account to punish the bad kid's parents?
I like what my school did like 22 years ago. The "POS" is at the entrance to the Cafeteria.... Going into the Cafeteria, the students lined up in a specific order. She knows who is supposed to be next, you just tell lunch lady your last name and 4 digit code, and you get checked off as present.
You get a standard lunch. The only extras you c
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Old geezer here.
My school lunch was a "standard meal" and cost 27 cents. We paid it to a sweet little old lady in cash. She knew us all so no chance for anonymity.
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This fingerprint system seems like an overly complicated, overly invasive means to cover a couple bucks or equivalent-pounds worth of food every day.
It is.
First, you don't use fingerprints. The dangers have been discussed on Slashdot enough I don't need to elaborate. You NEVER use biometrics for "casual" security, even more so if there is a third party involved.
Second, the British government LOVES surveillance and I'm sure that their law enforcement community will get access to every thumbprint scanned. If
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Ok, a figerprint scanner might be overly complicated but then why did you then proceed to invent
an even more complicated system using picture ids, payment cards, pin numbers, touch screens, etc..
Seems like your system is alot more complicated than a simple finger scan. Kids are notorious
about losing things among other reasons.
The main reason I would object to a fingerprint scan would be because I don't want the fingerprint to
go elsewhere and the precendence of getting kids used to giving away their biometr
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No, it's about an overly complicated solution to a problem that can be solved with much simpler means.
All of your "simpler means" require manual human checking by the "lunch lady". The whole point of the new system is that there IS NO LUNCH LADY. It is designed to eliminate a human from the loop. If the lunch lady was earning $40k (much more if unionized), and her position is eliminated, then this $20k system will pay for itself in six months.
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Easy up now (Score:5, Informative)
Two things...
First off, British schools don't have "rent-a-cops", security scanners or ID cards, this is an American thing. The hardest security you'll come across in a school in the UK is the school gate.
Secondly, the biometrics are just an additional method of payment, it's entirely optional. No one's stopping you from paying in cash. If I was tasked with setting up a hassle free method of tracking kids deductions from their pre-paid balance, this would likely be the route I'd go too. It's far cheaper to buy 2-3 scanners than to kit the whole school out with RFID tags, and it doesn't come with the inevitable hang-up of things getting lost, stolen or forgotten.
There's not much risk of the data being shared outside the school, as even the police aren't allowed to store biometric records of anyone without an active criminal record.
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This is still disturbing. Kids are not learning responsibility and at the same time being taught to submit to a draconian authoritative system. While I'm for a safety net in society (housing, food, education, health, etc), some guiding for youngsters to help get them going, etc this takes it to a whole new level. Kids need to learn that there are consequences to not showing up on time, not getting projects done on time, not scheduling things appropriately, forgetting things, etc. Kids should be put in a pos
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Secondly, the biometrics are just an additional method of payment, it's entirely optional. No one's stopping you from paying in cash.
Oh, yes, because optional things never become mandatory. Only 10 years ago, the EZ-pass highway electronic payment system was optional. It even offered a discount (initially).
Now, there are several bridges where cash payment has been eliminated altogether. And many, many locations where the only available cash lane requires extra 15 minutes of my time.
I am talking about US, but I am sure such "optional" feature creep is an international thing.
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Screw that..
Just tag'em at birth, never had any complaints from the cat and you can always just scan the QR code tattooed on their forhead when you forget their name/birthday/age again or whatever.
We had (Score:2, Interesting)
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This is nowhere really news except where it takes a billion years to get anything done in the school system.
Re:We had (Score:5, Funny)
it takes longer because they have to route the data from the fingerprint scanner through the local FBI office to check for people on the no-cafeteria list.
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That's pretty good, but I would have gone with the "no eat list."
We've got a no-fly list.
We are developing a no-work list. [aclu.org]
A no-eat list seems the next logical step.
just prepay for food (Score:5, Interesting)
in my kid's school in the USA the only way to pay for school lunch is to send a check once a month. no check, no lunch, no lost money, no tracking
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The problem is, all kids REQUIRE a lunch regardless of the parent's ability financially or mentally to prepay for them. It's a function of education to keep kids alive, not to mention focused.
Re: just prepay for food (Score:2)
There are discounts for lower incomes, and even then its only $35 a month. Parents who dont pay like me send kid to school with lunch from home
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UNLESS THEY DO NOT. The kid still needs to be fed for school to be functional.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:just prepay for food (Score:5, Funny)
All kids require... what kind of socialist nanny state bull is that?
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It's a function of education to keep kids alive, not to mention focused.
No... it's not at all. The function of education is to educate kids.
Their parents have a responsibility to see that their kids are fed and their health requirements are met.
The school should simply eliminate all the POS crap and require parents to pay.
Failure to pay will the a disciplinary infraction against the parent; the student may be suspended, and child protective services may be contacted.
There is no right to care for
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You are benefiting from government spending on things like public transport, police, fire, army, schools, etc. even if you never see a train, cop, fireman, soldier or school in your life. Society works because it is full of people. The better these people are at their jobs, the more productive they are and the better society works. If you don't directly benefit from one of these "socialist" schemes, you benefit from others who do. Look further than your own face and you might see that it makes a lot of
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> Too many kids show up with nothing, or nothing of any nutritional value, because the parent can't or won't prepare a lunch..
In a school district like that, there's so many kids on the dole that they are all getting a free lunch anyways. It's easier on the school district that way.
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Going hungry a lot, or getting fed by summer programs set up by various charities to feed kids like this in neighborhoods where it's prevalent.
Great idea! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great idea! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: Great idea! (Score:2)
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I'd like to see this system implemented in The States. It basically circumvents the school yard bully from stealing lunch money from would-be victims.
When I was bullied, my lunch money was never the target. It was always my pride they were after.
Teach your kid to have pride that's not dependent on the views of others and suddenly bullies stop being a problem.
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When I was bullied, neither my money nor my pride were the target. They just wanted to look strong in front of their friends, and I did not have the strength of muscle to fight back.
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When I was bullied, neither my money nor my pride were the target. They just wanted to look strong in front of their friends, and I did not have the strength of muscle to fight back.
That's when you just start screaming "Assault! Assault!" as loud as possible.
Again, your problem was pride. You didn't want to seam weak so you just took it and pretended like they weren't hurting you.
let go of the pride, embrace revenge, scream for an adult and then get them expelled.
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I'd like to see this system implemented in The States. It basically circumvents the school yard bully from stealing lunch money from would-be victims.
The only thing that can (and will) circumvent the school yard bullies from bullying is this [youtube.com].
Self-defence is, always, the best defense.
Oh, the victim overreacted? Educate him/her , punishing him/her for force abuse if it's the case. BUT NEVER punish the self-defense.
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No it's not (although good on that kid!)
Yes, it is. :-)
The only thing self defense will produce is an arms race... Next day kid A brings a club to get closely acquainted with the face of kid B, kid B brings a club with nails, then kid A brings a rusty metal rod etc... until something real bad happens...
The escalade of violence it's something that can happen, yes. Mainly, in no law lands, where there's no authority to settle things down.
What you fails to recognize is that bullying is about opportunity and unaccountability. Bullies do what they do because they can do it unchecked. The system FAILED to prevent the escalade of violence done by bullies.
It's not about self defense. It's about teaching (educating) people that this kind of stuff is wrong.
Some people never learns. You have to force them to behave. Granted, they have rights by them own, so we can't just kill them, lock them, or anyt
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Inexpensive liveness detectors can be defeated with a thin layer of sillyputty imprinted with the target print over your own finger.
Which is good. Teach kids to hack the system young. We had a legally blind checkout person in the cafeteria. So we didn't steal, it wasn't sporting. We continued eating fast in line and not paying.
Sigh (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this latest story of "progress" falls into the "You have zero privacy now, get over it" category.
Not a big change (Score:2)
https://www.mylunchmoney.com (Score:2)
There already is a server that works, without using biometrics: https://www.mylunchmoney.com./ [www.mylunchmoney.com] My kids' schools use it, and we've never had any problems.
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www.mylunchmoney.com. uses an invalid security certificate.
https://www.mylunchmoney.com is fine. The problem is the period after the "com", likely intended to end the sentence,
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My kids' schools use it, and we've never had any problems.
... that you know of. I bet the lunch people have to deal quite often with student who have forgotten or miss-remembered their user id and/or password.
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I would rather have that, than to have my son fingerprinted.
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Finger scanners reduce the pattern to a number. There are several algorithms to do that encoding. Scans from different algorithms can not be matched. Finger print scanners are very different than taking fingerprints.
Disney has been using this for years (Score:3, Insightful)
Go to Disney World and buy any multi-day pass, and your fingerprints are digitally scanned. I'm sure they would be happy to turn over the data to law enforcement if requested. The prints taken from when you were 5yrs old could be used in an investigation decades later.
I hate that they have accounts in the first place (Score:2)
Norovirus anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Awesome! Let's have everyone use their index finger, touch the same spot and then eat a bunch of food with their hands. What could possibly go wrong?
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Probably a lot less then what would go wrong if we tried to live in a completely sterile environment.
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Copper and silver have anti-microbial properties. This problem was solved centuries ago by pure dumb luck.
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Kids being kids one of them will shove his finger up his arse before touching it. I don't think a bit of anti-bacterial effect is going to cut it.
Spurious Claim (Score:2)
The benefits are that pupils are less likely to lose [money stored in the fingerprint system than money carried in their pockets]
That is a spurious claim. The security on money stored in pockets and exchanged by physical transfer of a monetary token is fallible, but so is the security on the cafeteria electronic wallet system. Home Depot [slashdot.org], Supervalu, and Albertson's [arstechnica.com] are very recent examples of major compromises, and the number of small scale compromises is enormous.
Fingerprints can be faked, networks can be
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I'm not sure it's a spurious claim when you consider the circumstances that they're using it in.
The users are children, meaning that they are much more likely to lose or forget their money than adults. The system is (presumably) closed, so that the only thing you can do with the funds is buy school lunches (and maybe ask for a cheque payable to the kid's parents), so it's not a very tempting target for attack.
So while it's true that "merely moving from physical currency to electronic currency does not make
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It certainly less risky than walking around the streets with huge money clip
Did you not even read the links about Home Depot, Supervalu, and Albertson's? It is not certainly less risky. For example, it is more risky if you live in an area that has very little threat of mugging, or if you are perceived as a bad target for muggers. I generally have a few hundred dollars in my pocket, and have never been mugged; but my card is for sale on the Russian markets right now because I used Home Depot.
You are as stub
Sigh. (Score:5, Informative)
I work in IT in English schools.
Welcome to a decade ago.
I've worked in several schools that have biometric library systems and the move to cashless canteens has been underway for years (I've never happened to work with one, but that's not because they aren't around).
It is sold as preventing bullying, stopping you having to pay for the cards, etc. The privacy implications came up 10-15 years ago. Nobody, especially parents, really cared.
Hell, five years ago, my daughter's creche had fingerprint entry (I refused to take part, mainly because I saw it as insecure given I could gummi-bear the reader and enter as whoever came in last, but I was apparently the first to complain).
Old news people. It's already in schools all over the UK. There was minimal protest.
And you call this progress? (Score:2)
I used to walk home and my Mum would make lunch for me and any chum I brought along.
Sweet deal! (Score:2)
My children won't have to carry small amounts of cash, won't be allowed to buy snacks, and won't be allowed to buy food they already know they're allergic to? And in return they can spend their formative years being indoctrinated that being fingerprinted by the authorities every single day of their lives is the way we should all live our lives? Where do I sign up?
Had this similar system in 1996 (Score:2)
Back then, Biometric was replaced with a "Smart Card", basically todays credit card with a "smart chip" inside and photo ID of its owner.
Our parents would add money to the account which is linked to the user. Then the user just inserts their "smart card" when paying for food at the cafeteria. The operator would check the photo ID on the card, job done.
Biometric is just an upgrade to that system, which worked really well nearly 20 years ago lol. Good times, and years ahead.
finger scanning fingerprint (Score:2)
A finger scanner looks for certain features and reduces the result to a number. There are many different algorithms to do this encoding. Even different versions of the same model use different algorithms and fingers have to be re-scanned. The bottom line is that, in most cases, finger scans from different systems can not be use to identify someone between systems.
This is a nice solution (Score:2)
Not sure why you all are just finding problems with it.
Or you could just... (Score:2)
Or you could just have the kids learn a 4 digit PIN, like the majority of schools in America do...
Honestly, the cashier has a keypad, the kid just types in their PIN after the cashier adds up their purchase, and the account is debited (unless the student is eligible for a free meal, in which case the student does the exact same thing, but no money is deducted from an account - thus removing the stigma of being from a low income family, at least as far as lunch in the cafeteria is concerned)...
Another plus:allows pudding only after eating meat (Score:2)
If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding!
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!
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really??? They can bully people to use there finger to pay for there food?
You said you where paying for my lunch today right?
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Already happens in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_National_DNA_Database [wikipedia.org]
Fucking sucks. I'm on it, despite committing no crime or ever having been charged with one!
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First, how is this related to a fingerprint scanner that is not compatible with other fingerprint scanners.
Second, I guess you better be careful if you commit a crime.
Sucks to be a criminal... (Score:2)
Perhaps you should not have broken the law then you would not be on the National Criminal database.
I've never broken the law and therefore not on the database.
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You get on it just for being arrested.
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Have you applied to be removed? It's a long and slow process but if you keep nagging they will eventually remove your details.
Re: Or, you know (Score:3)
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This is stupid. If you're going to poke your finger to get a blood drop, disinfect the finger before you poke it, not every surface you're going to come in contact with.