Florida School District Scans Students' Irises Without Parents' Permission

[HiPointDem]

Polk County School District installed eye-scanning cameras on school busses at three locations—an elementary school, middle school and high school. The technology was put in place as part of a pilot security program, but many parents didn’t learn about it until children brought up the scanners at home.

The school district partnered with Stanley Convergent Security Solutions to try out its EyeSwipe-Nano technology. Rob Davis, director of support services for Polk County Schools, said the program is designed to track student movement as they get on and off the bus. Illustrating this rather dystopic vision, Davis explained, “Within seconds, we could tell parents, 'Yes, they got on bus No. 0750. They got on the bus at the high school at 2:05; they arrived at their bus stop at 2:45.”

Parents received a letter on May 24 announcing the EyeSwipe-Nano program, adding that students would need to obtain permission from the principal to opt out. Oddly enough, the letter announced a launch date from the past, May 20. By the time families received the letter, students on 17 school busses already had their eyes scanned.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/big-brother-watching-your-kids-florida-school-district-scans-students-irises-without?akid=10509.243140.Myx7Gz&rd=1&src=newsletter848532&t=5


Polk County has a $12 mill. budget deficit supposedly. I wonder if they got paid to 'try out' this technology?

http://cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/bn9/2013/5/30/polk_schools_grappli.html


reportedly the program has been suspended. parents considering suing.

http://www.examiner.com/article/schools-conducted-iris-scans-on-students-as-young-as-six-without-permission

[blkmusclmachine]

1. POLICE STATE

And Mexico is requiring all newborns have iris scans on file with the Federal Government. This is going global. And they have the license plate readers installed at intersections like everywhere else. One World Government?

[blkmusclmachine]

2. Working up to mandatory chipping.

Mark of the Beast.

[Igel]

3. There's a solution to this.

Eliminate school liability for some classes of events, and sharply curtail financial and legal liability for other kinds of incidents.

From the time the kid gets on the bus until he gets off at the right bus stop after school he's the school's liability.

Kids and parents often have reason to lie. If a kid vanishes, it's better for the parents' fiscal health that he vanish from school property. If he gets in trouble before school or goes truant for the day, it's better for the parent to lie and say he was home sick. If he misses early classes the parent can drop him off and lie, saying he was on the bus and was improperly marked absent.

Of course, schools can do the same.

It makes for logistical problems. Disobedient kid wants to get off at the wrong stop or get on the wrong bus, unless you verify every ID closely (time consuming and awkward) the kid'll be able to do it at least part of the time. Then buses are held up because bus 25 has one too few kids. You let the bus run, assuming that a kid caught a ride with a parent or is still in class only to find that he's on the wrong bus. Oops. If there's a problem, the school pays. In loco parentis.

You can't be in loco parentis, held to very high standards, and be denied the ability to police your charges. You want the schools to be held accountable, they're either going to pay through the nose--shortchanging the kids--or have to be able to monitor hordes of faces and kids, many out to ignore the system, and make sure they're following instructions.

It's not hard to game RFID tags or make them worse than useless--who's going to punish kids for forgetting their tags? You punish not the kids but the parents, and some parents will defend their kids' misbehavior to the death, at least to outsiders. Iris scans, now there's tolerable proof.

I hate the idea of scanning the kid's irises like that. It's annoying. Slow. Awkward. But if you don't limit school liability, lose the lying and misrepresentation, and have students and parents bear some of the responsibility for their own actions, it's where things need to go.