Biometric School Lunch

By now many school principals, superintendents and administrators have heard about biometric school lunch, or the use of devices such as fingerprint readers to recognize students and allow automatic payment and accounting of school lunch purchases. Some may be wondering how to sort the promise of advertising, information from misinformation.

While school lunch biometrics can legitimately address a number of problems of slow food lines, lost lunch money, cumbersome payment, fraud and intimidation lunch, the fall of the National School Lunch Program ( NSLP) participation, the devil is in the details. Of course, it comes down to the bottom line: work, cost efficiency and return on investment (ROI). Honestly, here we describe the advantages and disadvantages of the biometric school lunch compared to traditional technologies that managers can decide whether it makes sense for their schools.

How do school lunch biometric systems of working and to protect privacy?

In most school lunch biometric systems, students place a finger on a small fingerprint reader by the register. Within seconds, the system translates the electronic print into a mathematical model, discards the fingerprint image, and matches the pattern to the student's meal account information. Food Service Solutions (FSS) biometric software, for example, plots of 27 points on a grid that correspond to the fingerprint ridges to achieve a positive identification, but does not save actual fingerprint image.

When school lunch biometric systems like FSS are numerically based and discard the actual fingerprint image can not be used for any purpose other than the recognition of a student within a social group of students. Since there is no stored fingerprint image, the data is useless to the police, which requires actual fingerprint images. Since there is no way that any fingerprint or computer expert to extract a record and reconstruct the image of a person's fingerprint purely numerical data, privacy is protected.

Is the speed biometric school lunch lines?

Although some vendors claim that biometrics speed up all school lunch lines, this is not always the case. Biometric systems will speed lunch lines where the money is used primarily because students, especially younger ones, are likely to lose or misplace money and the longer it takes to make the correct change. They speed lines Personal Identification Number (PIN) based on systems that have time to enter and students tend to forget. They will also have the speed of the lines on the magnetic card-based systems, they have time to fish out of your pockets and spend.

Since biometric systems often take a few seconds to recognize a student and access to account information, are not necessarily faster than systems based on well-organized list, which verifies the name of a list, or ticket systems based on a coated colored tickets are limited.

A good biometric system, however, will save a significant amount of labor and administrative costs. Because the bills are paid in advance and students can not lose their finger for identification, time series eliminates administrative problems such as lost lunch money, lunch money bullying, card replacement, or account fraud caused by stolen cards by chance a PIN number or other identity theft cases.

Moreover, because biometric systems automate the payment and accounting of school lunches, they eliminate tedious administrative tasks such as backend cash, ticket or paper handling, accounting, reconciliation, and monitoring.

Are biometric systems work with younger children?

Administrators may have heard or biometric systems work with all minor children or none at all. Neither is true. The fact is that biometric systems tend to have a higher rate in young children misunderstood about the age of four or five years, which is typically found in preschool or kindergarten, because their fingerprints have developed what enough. In these younger children, a good biometric system should have a successful identification rate of about 80 to 85 percent. In children and adults about six years older, a biometric system should successfully identify good and debit cards with 96 to 97 percent, a figure substantially higher than most cards at once or readers of cards. For the small number of students unsuccessfully identified by a biometric system, administrators can have a backup system in place as a surname search.

Biometric systems may also have difficulty recognizing a student going through a growth spurt, as its digital fingerprint pattern may change as your body grows. When this happens, usually around grades five and nine years, having a biometric system that allows rapid re-registration may be important. Because some systems allow the new record in a minute, this can happen right in the lunch line or the end of the meal.


Why is the success rate of identification is so important?

Because a biometric student identification success rate can determine your success or failure of a school lunch program, administrators should consider how reliable and easy to maintain a system before purchase. For greater reliability and minimal maintenance, managers must choose the optical biometric sensors, which work with light. These usually have a special glass scratch resistant a material as hard as quartz, which does not require treatment or maintenance. They are also resistant to impact, corrosion, discharge, electrostatic and extreme weather, while providing a larger image area that makes it easier finger placement for more reads than sorry.

On the other hand, capacitive sensors, which work with a computer chip or semiconductor, usually require surface treatments and protective coatings to protect against shock, electrostatic discharge, and other hazards. As the layers of wear, performance tends to degrade. As silicon chips are inherently fragile, they are also more susceptible to damage from scratches and rough handling. Image area is usually smaller also requires more stringent, the more consistent finger placement for the identification of successful students.

Why work with biometric data provider experience is essential

For the same reason managers do not want a surgeon directly from medical school operating on them, you may wish to receive a pass on the experience of biometric systems providers. Newcomers to the school lunch biometric market, in fact, have been working in the field for just 18 months, giving little time to work the subtleties of successful installation. In contrast, some biometric vendors veteran of nearly a decade of experience in implementing these systems in the school environment in real life.

In order to provide maximum identification success rate of students, biometric data providers with more experience of the system takes into account details such as the fingerprint scanner placement, the average height of students and impartiality. Administrators also may want to choose a provider system that allows students to use any register point of sale, even in other schools within the district, with a one-time registration. In contrast, some biometric providers require students to enroll in all registers to be used. Getting details such as law, not only improves the identification system for student success rate, but also accelerates the recognition that the lines move faster.

Why consider expanding the capacity of the biometric system is a necessity

Furthermore, recognition of students, debit the account and the payment by the more flexible school lunch biometric systems administrators now offer parents and some extra value.

For example, a biometric school lunch program (www.myschoolaccount.com) has an online component that allows parents to pre-pay for school lunches, and monitor their food choices of children. The technology even allows parents to restrict their children's options to avoid conflicts "special diet" or to prevent children from purchasing high fat, high sugar a la carte.

Once managers get a biometric school lunch program successfully up and running, some believe that the natural system extends to the school services such as assistance, monitoring and promoting the National School Lunch Program (NSLP ) participation, or revise textbooks and school library materials.

Along with the rest of the nation, parents and educators know that the childhood obesity epidemic is out of control. What has been clear to them is how to deal effectively with the problem. They now have a new ally that is helping to apply tough love in the school lunch line: fingerprint biometric readers linked to (POS) Point of Sale systems and Internet connections at home that can help control and restrict purchases of unhealthy lunch children, while encouraging and rewarding healthy ones.

A heavy weight problem

More than twelve million children in the U.S. are overweight. As obesity has doubled for preschoolers and adolescents and tripled for pre-teens from the 1970s, a growing number of obese children are at risk of adults usually weight-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea and heart disease, and the number of American children who have obesity surgery has tripled.

"It is now common to hear experts say that this is the first generation of children who do not outlive their parents due to diet and inactivity," says Deanna McDuffie, a wellness consultant in school based in Orlando, Florida. "This has to be, but unless you can certainly change bad habits."

Although rich in fat, sugar, fast food and sedentary lifestyle are as much a problem for children outside of school as in it, much of the furor focuses on what children are steep in school lunch lines, and for good reasons.

"Busy parents are realizing that they do not really know what their children are eating in school," said McDuffie. "Of course, there is a school lunch menu available, but the number one culprit is the a la carte menu, which is mandated to be nutritionally balanced often contains all the fat and sugar can get into a child .. My daughter says the three food groups in middle school are pizza, french fries and chocolate cake. "

Although the recently passed federal welfare mandate requires the appointment of coordinators of life for all public schools, the policy of the school wellness writing has proven to be an easy task. While the ban unhealthy foods from school may be a reasonable option for some parents, welfare coordinators, or school administrators, has proved unfeasible until now by a number of reasons.

Part of the problem is that most school canteens, though nominally under the "school" umbrella, they are actually procured by the entities in the spirit driven by forces of supply and demand. If there is no demand, no gain, and coffee can actually go bankrupt.

"Children today are driving the cafeteria food purchases, if 'do not see the pizza and donuts that do not fall," said McDuffie. "The cafeteria managers do not want it so, but do not know what else to do."

The presence of coins from vending machines in schools Layout unhealthy as soda, cookies, chips, sweets and sugary drinks makes things worse, according to McDuffie. It notes that the loose money in the pockets of children in school may also end up spending on food off-campus fast, candy fundraisers, or even illicit goods, such as snuff and alcohol, which is missing.

"Despite the simple ban unhealthy foods from schools seem to be an effective solution, not getting to the root of the problem, which is to teach children to make better decisions," said McDuffie. "Children are bombarded by non-nutritious choices within and outside the campus and need help to break bad habits, establish and maintain the best."

Use technology to restrict bad lunch options, to encourage good
Towards an informed lifestyle and healthy, parents and educators have a new ally that is helping to apply tough love in the school lunch line: fingerprint biometric readers linked to POS systems and Internet connections at home that can help control and restrict purchases healthy kids lunch while encouraging and rewarding healthy.

For example, a biometric school lunch program (www.myschoolaccount. com), created by the Food Service Solutions (FSS), a pioneer of biometric identification in the school food service has an online component that allows parents to pre-pay for school lunches as well as to monitor their elections food of children. The technology even allows parents to restrict their children's options to avoid conflicts "special diet" or to prevent children from purchasing high fat, high sugar a la carte dishes.

Students placed a finger on a reader by the register Fingerscan small school lunch. Within seconds, the system translates the electronic print into a mathematical model, discards the fingerprint image, and matches the pattern to the student's meal account information.
No fingerprints or the image is saved because FSS biometric software only scans the texture of finger points and plots in a grid that mathematically correspond with ridges to achieve a positive identification only.

Using the system, parents can see the food and a la carte purchases at home through Internet for the past 30 days, day by day and step by step. Even breakfasts or snacks purchased at the cafeteria register show up. Through associated software, parents can specify prohibited purchases as "no a la carte items," that a school cafeteria worker adult lunch is going to see "red flag" in the registry and enforced in the time of purchase.
Because parents can monitor their children's purchases and deposit lunch money directly into your account at any time, they know exactly where, when and how you spend your money. They know that their money is spent on specific balanced lunch or a la carte choices rather than lose unhealthy or illicit items, even.

"The first step in fighting childhood obesity is to make children aware of and responsible for what they're eating so you will not buy on impulse or habit," said McDuffie. "With biometric school lunch program as myschoolaccount, parents know if Jimmy had a staff pizza - usually contains 25 grams of fat -. or three may prohibit the purchase of a letter, if necessary."

For parents who want to catch up and recognize their children to eat right, healthy foods like salads, apples, yogurt and can also be tagging and tracking of a separate category for healthy food in school lunch programs as the FSS biometric . Using these programs, monitoring, recognizing and rewarding healthy eating can be even more powerful when performed by schools, and can be a powerful tool to fight obesity to the federal government requires school wellness coordinators, according with McDuffie.

"Recognizing the healthy eating for students, the class or grade level, it is now possible with programs like MySchoolAccountTM, for children, classes or grades can all be chosen, for example, eating three or more healthy elements in a week "said McDuffie. "Technology can become a platform for the integration of health and nutrition in the curriculum, the use of positive peer pressure, for example, to praise or reward second-grade class that had the most documented successful Healthy Eating during the week. "

As any parent or educator knows, one of the reasons it is difficult for children to eat healthy is their reluctance to try new foods - call it the Green Eggs and Ham barrier. McDuffie technology provides biometric fingerprint also help in this case, because if they try and how it will look for more for their own account.

"I encourage schools to healthy food fairs with the technology," says McDuffie. "Children can earn points for each new class to try this healthy food and healthy does not have to mean taste of vanilla yogurt is a delicious substitute for ice cream, especially topped with blueberries, granola or trail mix ,. And apple slices a great alternative to sweets. "

McDuffie says that parents and educators truly help children when they are helped to "acquire a taste" of health, foods low in fat, low sugar could have been avoided before.
This is repeated for the children opportunities to talk and plan purchases with their parents, resulting in more flavorful, healthy food entries really expect children to eat.

"The bad food component of obesity is the result of impulse and habit of a limited range of food options," concludes McDuffie. "Today, parents and educators have the ability to teach, track, and recognize the children to make better healthier choices that will serve for life -. Because our children, by all rights, we will survive "