Fingerprint Scanning For Child Check-in

Posted on October 25, 2007 by Jim Walton

I have relationships with many different companies, in many different ways and one such relationship is with a company that is considering adding fingerprint scanning to their self check-in module.  I am told that it is relatively inexpensive and easy to implement and very convenient.

Seriously, I’m going to forget my barcode tag or forget (lose?) my keys altogether before I walk in missing one or all of my fingers.  Generally, on this kind of thing, you set it up by scanning multiple fingers so that when the one finger ends up in a cast or is bitten off by your dog, life goes on and check-in still happens.

It seems that this particular technology is going to become more commonly used and this is a valid discussion worth having.

The questions are:

  • How will this technology be received by churches and parents?
  • Is this a convenience that would be generally embraced or not?
  • If not, how come?

I know my opinion, I think, and I’ll share it soon but what are your thoughts?

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7 Responses to “Fingerprint Scanning For Child Check-in”

  1. Taylor Smith on October 25th, 2007 12:55 pm

    Jim,

    I was talking with a vendor about a year ago in adding fingerprint checkin for a local youth group and was advised against it. He said the technology isn’t extremely reliable in adolesents, so I don’t know how that would factor in. I do think its a great idea though. It simplifies the process and I for one would love to see it become more common place.

  2. Peter on October 25th, 2007 1:37 pm

    I think that without the proper education, this won’t do very well. In this case, the actual fingerprints are probably not stored (if they are – that could be an issue) but rather some mathematical formula stores a numerical representation of the key data points and validation is based on how closely everything matches.

    However, people are probably going to be uncomfortable using fingerprints for checkin for a while. Sure it’s convenient, but I can see people worried about false matches or not matching when they need to get their kids and so on. A barcode or sticker is pretty easy to validate and probably not too much of a problem.

    I don’t know – I’d be interested to see how well this is received. I don’t picture it taking off too much in our smaller church, but perhaps larger churches will have more to say about this.

  3. Tim Newberry on October 25th, 2007 4:29 pm

    I would use it in our Church if it were not to expensive and it worked accurately.

    I wouldn’t freak out by it but I am sure some people would.

    Tim

  4. Brian Slezak on October 25th, 2007 6:13 pm

    I was surprised by a visit to Universal Studios in Orlando, FL, this year where I found they are using your fingerprint identification to enter the park. The first time you use your ticket, they record your fingerprint, locking it to your ticket. (So you conveniently can’t give it away to someone else.) On re-entry, you have to have “your” ticket. Even your wife’s ticket won’t work for you, or vice versa.

    I didn’t watch intently to see if there were many people turned off by this, but I can tell you thousands of people did it without question.

    Granted entry into a theme park isn’t the same as checking your child in … but if we trust Universal Studios with recording the data representation of our fingerprint in some way, you’d think you could trust your church. Right?

  5. Garrett on October 25th, 2007 8:21 pm

    While the computer never truly stores the image of you fingerprint, I take issue when you consider the growing privacy issues of our time. I’d worry that it’s yet another piece of information I don’t want to give. I’d wait for something like what they’re doing in Japan (and eventually on US airlines) with cellphones acting as the signin/out token. Where a barcode is sent to the cellphone which is then scanned.

  6. silentfool on October 26th, 2007 9:28 am

    We’ve been using a fingerprint validation software suite for the past couple years in the children’s ministry at our church. I think there was some initial hesitation, but for the most part it has worked extremely well and the parents have had little complaint. Our particular software allows you to scan up to 10 fingers, in case you can’t get one to scan for one reason or another. There’s also the option to have a “key code” that would replace your fingerprint if you either don’t like that option or can’t get your finger to read.

  7. Chris on October 27th, 2007 5:12 pm

    Having worked for one of the major silicon companies that manufacture the chips that scan fingers, I can say that for the bulk of the population they work really well. You definitely want to look a system that will allow more than one finger to be recorded. There doesn’t seem to be too much information out there about children and prints. We haven’t used anything like this at our church yet, but you never know…