Wyoming Elementary Using Palm Scanners to ‘Speed Up Lunch Lines’

Laramie County School District 1 has been trying a new program at one of it’s elementary schools to speed up lunch lines.
The program implements a palm-scanner to help students access their accounts, something some may see as controversial.
The school lunch line has traditionally been a methodical process with students waiting in line for half the period before sitting down to enjoy their lunch.

At Hobbs Elementary they began using palm scanner last school year to help students access their lunch account more quickly.
“So what it does is it takes a picture of the different little veins that are inside your hand just like regular light does,” said Shannon Thompson-Emslie, Nutrition Services Program Administrator at LCSD1.
The scanner is an alternative to punching in a six-digit account number. Something that younger students can have a hard time remembering and it ends up slowing up the lunch line and reducing the time students get to eat.

“It only takes a second to read the hand where it might take a few more seconds to punch in that number and then if the student forgets them they have to punch in again and so that can take a lot more time,” Thompson-Emslie said.

But where is this personal information being stored?
“The information is stored with nutrition services in our secure server and then it’s erased and never used again once we don’t need it for their accounts anymore,” Thompson-Emslie said.  TRUNews