Increasing Number of Schools Using Iris Scanners Instead of Traditional Student IDs

Reason

An increasing number of colleges are doing away with traditional student IDs and replacing them with iris scanners. At least one justification for the change is that while pieces of plastic can be lost at dive bars, keg parties,or football games the library it is a lot harder to lose your eyeballs.

Similar scanners are also being used on buses used by elementary school kids.

From CNN:

Kids lose their school IDs but they don't often lose their eyeballs.

That's one of the reasons why a growing number of schools are replacing traditional identification cards with iris scanners. By the fall, several schools -- ranging from elementary schools to colleges -- will be rolling out various iris scanning security methods.

Winthrop University in South Carolina is testing out iris scanning technology during freshman orientation this summer. Students had their eyes scanned as they received their ID cards in June.

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Comments

[BakedPenguin]

Nothing remotely creepy about that.

[Joe M]

Damn that's about word-for-word what I was gonna say.

[BakedPenguin]

Your computer? It has an iris scanner in it, and I stole your thoughts!

[Swiss Servator - past LTC(ret)]

Any of them any good?

[Matt Writer]

The technology using irises is actually BETTER than relying on ID cards to protect one's genuine identity. If the government wants to impose a checkpoint society, they can already do that with drivers licenses or state issued ID cards. The technology for iris scans would work in the individual's benefit by knowing someone else can't impersonate them.

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[sarcasmic]

Get them accustomed to it while they're young. Then they'll easily submit as adults.

[Joe M]

We have always been at war with America.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

The local cop shop had flyers advertising a "children's fingerprinting day" that I noticed when I was grabbing something to eat a few months ago. No joke. I can tell you from direct personal experience that multiple officers in this particular department are total scum, too.

[sarcasmic]

Round here they do that too. They say that it's just for the parents records, not for the cops. Then if the kid disappears the parents can give the prints to the cops (like that's going to help), but otherwise they remain only in the possession of the parents. So they say.

[Brett L]

My father once said, "we never had you fingerprinted, because they only use kid's fingerprints to identify the bodies after something bad happens." I never figured out if that meant he didn't want me identified or what.

[Tonio]

Hey, welcome back SRC.

Still the best handle, ever.

[Somalian Road Corporation]

Heya. I'm usually at least reading the articles, sometimes I just don't feel like commenting, or occasionally I get total politics burnout for a week or two.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Do students still have to give out their SSN for every facet of higher education existence?

[Nikkis enthusiastic dissent]

You betcha.

[Raven Nation]

Although a lot of schools now used internally generated ID numbers rather than SSN.

[Brett L]

"I forgot my ID."
"What's your SSN?"

[Raven Nation]

Should have clarified that. When I review enrollment/academic records for students, all I can see is the school-generated ID number. I'm sure the SSN is on record somewhere but there have been some efforts to limit the number of people with access.

[Agammamon]

The military is finally doing this also.

[DEATFBIRSECIA]

"Kids lose their school IDs but they don't often lose their eyeballs."

More often they lose their liberty.

[Raven Nation]

"Kids lose their school IDs but they don't often lose their eyeballs."

Insert "Minority Report"-connected joke here.

[Rasilio]

"Kids lose their school IDs but they don't often lose their eyeballs."

And how hard is it to grab the head of a student, either attached or not, to put in front of the scanner should you want access?

[Zeb]

Depends on the student.

[SKR]

you don't even need to go that far. An inkjet printer and a piece of paper can fool the iris reader.

[robc]

I lost my school ID exactly as often as I lost my drivers license...never.

[Zeb]

Yeah, it's really not much of a problem. I bet they are more worried about the cards being lent to or stolen by other people to get access to places. A lot of times the cards are also door keys.

[robc]

Yeah, could be. In the 1987-1991 time frame, mine got you into home football games, there was no ticket pickup in advance except for the uga game. I knew some people who got busted dropping IDs out of the stadium to the street below to get a group of non-students into the student section for free.

I think they are used for a lot more stuff now.

[Raven Nation]

Here they're used as library cards, access to some of the parking lots, and can be loaded with cash to spend on campus and at certain off-campus locations.

[Careless]

This reminded me that, while I lost my ID twice my first 2+ years at college, I still have the third one in my wallet 14 years later

[Invisible Finger]

Now I understand burkas.

[feudalserf]

Now I'm starting to question whether Minority Report was prophetic or just had a guy with insider information to the State's plans.

By the way, I still haven't forgiven my parents for taking me to police fingerprinting day at my grade school back in the early 90s. These poor kids are screwed.

[Res Publica Americana]

Students should tell their respective educational establishments to fuck right off. What's with this Orwellian horseshit swelling up all around us recently? Are people really becoming this apathetic?

[sarcasmic]

"We've got an opt-out! We've got an opt-out! Call over the guards! We've got an opt-out!"

[Res Publica Americana]

"Make me."

[Rasilio]

Iris Scanners?

Does that mean you have to sing Goo-Goo Dolls songs to get on campus?

[robc]

If they are private schools I dont see the problem.

State schools...not so much.

[anon]

Great, now I'll have to steal eyeballs to watch porn on the internet at the local universities' library.

[NeonCat]

"Hey, does this look like chloroform to you? Wait, that's not right, let me start over."

[Robert]

This reminds me of a conversation I had in the car 3 days ago with a friend who's a blood-and-soil type "conservative". He said libertarians should be very much against stores "extorting" info about what we buy by giving us discount cards. He insisted that was not a voluntary exchange, that when someone offers a discount like that, people "have no choice". Apparently he thinks an easy choice, i.e. one that the vast majority will pick, is not really a choice, and that even the choice to shop somewhere else is not a real choice, because the discount is too attractive. Hence the info collection system should be outlawed, and the stores "should" "just" give the discount.

[Agammamon]

That's funny - I've refused to make that choice for years and years. Its not hard - just tell the cashier nothankyouidontcarehowmuchoffthetotalicanget.

[ant1sthenes]

This libertarian doesn't have a discount card. Fuck your weak-willed "conservative" friend. I bet he's willing to go on all day about people dying for freedom, but he won't even give up a small discount?

[Robert]

He thinks his cooperation has been extorted in a way that should be illegal, and apparently that stores should simply be required to discount their goods for nothing in return. This is just a stark example of why he's against free trade. I even proofread a fantasy novel of his in which the beings of one society, by trading on attractive terms with those of another, wound up in penury to them; however, the "good guys" eventually conquered the lender nation and reestablished relationships on a regulated basis.

[ShagNasty]

This reminds me of Minority Report

[JeremyR]

Geeze, we didn't even have student ids when I was a kid. Somehow we managed.