Big brother is palm- scanning kids in schools and patients in hospitals.
Palm-scanning technology is popping up nationwide as a bona fide biometric tracker of identities, and it appears poised to make the jump from schools and hospitals to other sectors of the economy including ATM usage and retail. It also has applications as a secure identifier for cloud computing.
Palm scanners are installed in more than 50 school systems and more than 160 hospital systems in 15 states and the District of Columbia, Yanak says.
Pinellas County Schools were the first in the nation to bring palm scanning to their lunch lines about 18 months ago. They are being used by 50,000 students at 17 high schools and 20 middle schools. Soon, the program will expand to 60,000 more students at 80 elementary schools, Dunham says. The 2% of students who opt out can still use cash.
He says hygiene isn't a concern because students don't need to touch the device, but only hold their hand directly above it, to register a scan.
At hospitals, the scans are making patient registration more efficient, and prevent sharing of information by patients that could lead to insurance fraud, says Carl Bertrams, senior vice president of sales and marketing for palm scan software maker HT Systems in Tampa.
Students in Carroll County, Md., schools are using lunch line palm scanners, but 7-year-old Ian Webb isn't one of them. His father, Michael Webb, decided to have Ian, a second-grader, opt out of the program at Piney Ridge Elementary in Eldersburg.
"My son is not using the technology," he says. "I'll be honest, I think it's horrible. It's an intrusion into our children's rights."
Webb says he's concerned that use of the scanners by elementary school students normalizes the use of biometrics and anesthetizes young children to recognizing privacy violations later in life.
"I understand taking an iris scan of a pilot at an airport, so you know it's the right pilot flying the plane" he says. "This is that level of equipment they're installing in a line that serves steamed corn. I don't think it rises to the level of steamed corn."
Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, says the key to this particular kind of biometrics — that is, the kind a user consents to, unlike some facial recognition software — is ensuring that all data be treated sensitively.
"If it's a technology that works really well, it won't be long before you're offering your palm in a lot of different locations, and you will be concerned about who's got access to that information and what they want to do with it," Calabrese says.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/25/palm-scanners-technology-schools/1726175/
Use of biometric identification technology in the food stamp program.
"Biometric identification technology provides automated methods to identify a person based on physical characteristics—such as fingerprints, hand shape, and characteristics of the eyes and face—as well as behavioral characteristics—including signatures and voice patterns. Although used in law enforcement and defense for several years, it has recently been used in civilian applications and shows some promise to reduce the number of duplicate cases in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and other assistance programs
Biometric identification systems are currently operational at some level in Arizona, California (under county initiative, first by Los Angeles County), Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Texas. Finger imaging is the principal form of technology used in all eight States, though alternative technologies have simultaneously undergone trials in Massachusetts (facial recognition) and Illinois (retinal scanning). By the end of 2000, new systems are expected to be in place in California (statewide unified system), Delaware, and North Carolina. Other States are currently in the initial planning stages, including Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. However, there is little information available at this point regarding the specific course and trajectory these States will follow in terms of system types, implementation schedules, and the benefit programs in which they will implement the new requirement."
In the report, it's stated that “Finger imaging has been readily integrated into the human services programs of the affected states. However, despite the positive reaction to finger imaging from the State officials we interviewed, there is still uncertainty regarding the extent to which this technology can reduce multiple participation fraud.”
In the section entitled, “Finger Imaging and Fraud Reduction,” the report reads “Assessing the ability of finger imaging to reduce fraud is difficult because the amount of fraud caused by duplicate participation in welfare programs is unknown, and because changes in caseload after the introduction of finger imaging cannot be interpreted unambiguously as reduction of fraud.”
In fact, the report estimates that the finger imaging technologies, at best, detected only 1 case of duplicate applications in every 5,000.
With these statements in mind, one would be justified in wondering whether or not the question of multiple participation in food stamp programs is even that serious of a question to begin with. Obviously, the premise of the fingerprinting program is built on the assumption that such fraud is occurring. However, neither the local, state, or federal government can provide any actual numbers or credible evidence of such events at least so far as this report is concerned.
Yet, what is more striking than the effects on alleged and supposed cases of fraud is the information relating to the reaction of the general public who were fingerprinted as well as that of the staff doing the fingerprinting.
At this point, it should be noted that the state of Illinois has tested retina scanning technology while Massachusetts utilized facial recognition.
Nevertheless, the report is clear that opposition to the program from both food stamp recipients and those operating the finger printing technology was virtually non-existent. In all cases, the programs actually went better than expected and without the negative responses that the agencies had anticipated. The report states,
The States with operating systems reported that implementation of new biometric client identification procedures had a negligible impact on operations at the local office level. In general, States also reported that the problems and obstacles encountered in operating their respective projects are not unlike those encountered in demonstrating any new technology or procedural modification. These States also reported that their systems and procedures were implemented without unexpected difficulty and were rapidly institutionalized. All the States confronted a range of basic physical space and logistical issues, including where to situate the new equipment, how to appropriately alter job descriptions, who to reassign or hire to handle the new procedures, and how to adjust the flow of clients and paperwork most efficiently. However, none reported any particularly noteworthy difficulties. States reported that clients have been cooperative and accepting of the technology.[Emphasis added.]
Of course, one must always take statements made by government agencies pushing an agenda such as biometric identification with a grain of salt, as many of these agencies are notorious for claiming public support for a project merely as a public relations strategy. This means that many agencies, like the TSA for instance, will claim the vast majority of the public is satisfied with the new procedures, thus insisting that those who oppose it are in a distinct and radical minority, which then creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One would be wise to consider the implementation of these programs in their select locations as nothing more than test projects. Keep in mind, some of the locales not only used fingerprinting technologies but also retinal scans and facial recognition, a technology that has received a massive push forward in recent months via corporations, law enforcement, and the corporate media.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/SNAP/FILES/ProgramIntegrity/biomeval.htm
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/food-stamp-biometric-i-d-program-introduced-under-guise-of-fraud-reduction_112012