The use of biometrics in schools has grown significantly over the past fifteen years. These include fingerprints and facial recognition.
These systems are used for things like canteen payments, library borrowing and door access. They are also used for monitoring attendance and behavior control.
1. Authentication
Schools face a variety of challenges in identifying students, delivering accurate and auditable student records, ensuring safety on campus and maximizing federal and state funding. Biometrics are an ideal solution for addressing these issues.
Currently, students are identified using picture ID cards and PINs, which can be easily lost, forgotten or shared. These methods can also lead to security breaches, employee turnover and reporting errors.
Finger scanning biometric technology offers irrefutable proof of student attendance for accurate and auditable reporting. In addition, it provides administrators with period-by-period attendance records in real-time, enabling them to quickly identify students who are not in class.
2. Access Control
Using biometrics to verify students is an effective way to streamline student identification. Whether schools need to manage attendance, grant access to buildings or computer labs, or track lunch payments and library materials, it helps administrators do the work faster and more efficiently while delivering accurate and auditable records.
However, schools need to be aware of how their data is protected and used. This is particularly true for fingerprint and iris scans, which can provide sensitive information about a person’s dietary habits and medical conditions.
This is a real concern for parents and students, which is why the European Union requires that they must be given a choice before their biometrics are collected. Schools also need to explain how long the data is stored for and how it will be destroyed when the student leaves school.
3. Security
Biometrics are a popular security tool in schools that help administrators identify students and deliver accurate and auditable student records. They are also used to grant access to technology and replace passwords.
However, they raise concerns about the security of students’ data. Even when districts have full-time staff dedicated to protecting student data, breaches are possible.
School administrators need to ensure that only the right people have access to their biometric databases. They should also perform regular audits to keep that data secure and safe.
4. Reporting and Activity Tracking
Taking attendance is an important task for educators and is especially difficult in classrooms where students have multiple classes at a time. Biometric fingerprint scanning eliminates this time-consuming and error-prone process by allowing instructors to instantly verify student attendance.
This technology can also be used to track student progress during class, as well as assessing their learning style. It can help instructors identify when students are struggling to retain information, or when they may need more assistance.
5. Online Learning
There are many advantages to online learning, from reducing the costs of education to making it more accessible to students who cannot attend traditional classes. But the popularity of online learning also means that there is a growing need for data-driven analysis to optimize curriculums and increase engagement.
While biometrics are a valuable tool for educational institutions, they must be properly managed to ensure that students’ privacy is not compromised. This means ensuring that schools are compliant with laws and regulations regarding student data privacy, such as the Protection of Freedoms Act.
In addition, if the data collected is going to be used for security reasons or for other reasons, there must be a strong privacy-protective framework in place. This is especially important for children’s privacy rights.