School cashless canteen?

[Thefatcatssleeping]

My DS school has recently introduced a cashless canteen system. This involves parents/guardians paying money into an account. It was set up by taking a photo of DS and taking his thumb and forefinger print from each hand and when he gets something in the canteen he scans his print on the machine. We get a notification when funds are running low.
Just wondering how many other schools have adapted this system?
There are 1100 pupils in the school.
Never really gave it much thought tbh, but then I asked myself should I be concerned that my child’s photo, name and fingerprints be stored on a school database?
Thoughts please.

We have it, and I don't have any concerns. Much simpler than ds losing cash or getting it stolen. My main gripe is he never knows how much is left on it until it runs out!

We have it in my school. When the Year 7 students started in September and enrolled on the system, something got mixed up. Her thumbprint brings up my account. We have both been given a pin for our accounts as my thumbprint doesn't work anymore! I just have to trust if I top it up with money the Year 7 student doesn't use the thumbprint as she can still access my account. I haven't heard of any other problems though !

It’s not a stored fingerprint, it’s a stored digital algorithm. This system was in place at my DDs school when she started their in 2008 (as far as I could tell most of the secondaries around here were using it) so it’s not new. It’s very secure and I don’t know anyone who has had any problems with it apart from once when the website went down and I couldn’t top up my sons account but the school let pupils spend up to £3 on ‘tick’ that day.

Is that the best you got SoupDragon

It's all it deserves.

It's all it deserves. I hope you're right.

Nearly all in my experience. In fact I'm surprised there are any that aren't. Does a wonderful job of removing any stigma around free school meals as it's the same system for everyone

When I first heard about it I must admit I was shocked as it seemed too much like the prison system to keep track of prisoners.
But it works well and I seemed to be the only parent a bit at it but I didn't want to be THAT parent so I let it go.

We have it, very normal now. Much better than kids carrying cash (which they usually spend down at the shop before school or lose it or - less often - it could be stolen).

My DC has used this system for the past 3 years and it works really well

Soupdragon .

By the way, I resurrected the flapjack Trevor the other day and it was so oooo good.

BTW, I work at a nursery so the parents and staff are finger printed and no one else can get in/ out. There's also a pin code door which only staff know (double entrance), but I think parents like this level of security. (Wait will they go to Reception and there's only a bolt on the school gate which can be opened from the outside!).

Flapjack Trevor should be recipe, but it's such a good recipe it probably deserves a name of its own.

Same here with DDs school.
The only annoying thing is that the costs in the canteen are extortionate, which DD doesn't realise as she's not handing physical cash over.
We've gone pack lunch only now.

Trevor! 😂😂

Cashless catering was around when I was at high school about 15 years ago, it's not a new thing. Although we had swipe cards and not finger prints.

It was a good system, no need to worry about lost lunch money or spending it on junk at the corner shop. Also we didn't really know who was on free meals.

What do you think a hacker then wants to do with your child's fingerprints?

I love the system. Easy to top up, I can see the balance and what's it's been spent on and I can easily and quickly pay for trips etc. So much better than cash or cheques.

Trevor with chopped apricot and nuts is really good.

DS school is going cashless next term, my only concern is that now DS has a choice to either buy a sandwich & salad from the bakery on the way to school or get a school meal, any money he has left is his to supplement his pocket money, under the new system there are no refunds, so if he builds up cash on his account, he won't get it back. Now I give him the money on a Monday to last the week by bank transfer & he decides how to spend it. I think the system is great for younger pupils but doesn't help older pupils learn how to manage their own money.

These systems do not store the fingerprints. They store a hash generated by running a string of datapoints derived from the fingerprint through a hashing algorithm. When the user tries to autheticate, the fingerprint reader captures the same defined datapoints, generates a hash and that is compared to the unique hash held by the system for that user. Hashes cannot be decrypted, the best a hacker can do is a brute force attack, basically generate as many billions of hashes as they need to until they get a match. That's a common method for cracking passwords but with biometric data they won't get a fingerprint just a number of pieces of data derived from the fingerprint.

Quite common. Saves on dinner money faff. Means no one can steal dinner money. And you can keep an eye on spend and on what kind of —rubbish— food is being consumed too 😄

Who knows what someone could do with a bank of fingerprints in the future.

Whilst it might not be obvious what the risks are now there's no harm in asking the question about how the system works.

I agree with everyone else that they've been around for absolutely ages and presumably nothing bad has happened so far. A place I sometimes visit for work uses fingerprints for the staff, I've not heard anyone complain about it.

Who knows what someone could do with a bank of fingerprints in the future.

Well, yes. Except it isn't a bank of fingerprints.