Biometric technology expedites lunch lines

The Pinellas County School Board District in Clearwater, Fla. has paired up with technology provider Fujitsu Frontech North America to provide a reliable and secure method of handling school food service program transactions.

With more than 102,000 students, the district is the seventh largest in the state and the 24th largest in the nation. Efficiently serving this large population has, at times, proven challenging for the district, particularly in the school cafeteria snack and lunch lines. 

ID Card Group, an online retailer of ID card systems, is offering a school attendance tracking software system designed for the needs of mid- to large-sized educational institutions. The Teacher-In-a-Box Attendance Tracking Kit includes hardware, software and accessories.

The tracking system enables educational institutions to badge, track and report on all students and visitors entering and leaving the campus. It integrates with existing data and computer systems, providing a low cost solution for preschools, K-12 institutions and college campuses. 

Fox News Business has taken a look at university IDs that also double as prepaid cards. Fox dubs the prepaid aspect as “the latest twist on a long tradition of college campus ID cards serving a dual financial purpose.”

But according to Taran Lent, vice president of product management and development at provider CardSmith, student IDs have been doubling as payment cards on college campuses for decades. 

The CBORD Group rolled out version 6 of its Odyssey PCS card system that features online and mobile control of activities and sales. It also includes AdminWeb, making it easy to access current information on-the-go.

Version 6 supports real-time email notifications generated by Odyssey. For example, an alert can be configured to notify an administrator when a specific patron’s card is used, or a patron can be alerted if an account balance falls below a threshold level. 

The Huntsville, Ala. school district is conducting a pilot program that will track when and where students get on and off the bus. Currently, three schools–an elementary, middle and high school–are involved in the pilot.

The program, which kicks off next month, involves the 300 students tapping their ID card against a reader installed in each bus. If successful, said a district spokesman, the program could be expanded district-wide. 

Just as the University of Georgia police were ending an investigation into a sophisticated fake ID ring, another student dealing in fake driver licenses came to light. The original ring, apparently run by students at the University of Georgia and Gainesville State College, had distributed more than 1,000 fake IDs to students at the two schools.

The other student was identified by police last November as making and selling fake driver’s licenses out of his dorm room. Raids yielded a laminating machine, media storage devices and other equipment used to manufacture bogus IDs. 

Contactless technology is rapidly growing in adoption for all types of payment and ticketing systems. According to Eurosmart, 630 million secure contactless cards were shipped in 2008 alone and we have seen the number of trials for near field communication (NFC) products grown exponentially since the late 2000s.

When it comes to NFC-capable devices, ABI Research estimates that nearly 35 million NFC enabled handsets shipped in 2011, and nearly double that number will find their way to market in 2012.

Credit card companies are starting to issue contactless products and major cities are rolling out contactless mass transit cards. Governments safely use contactless technology to secure passports and other ID documents for citizens, while corporations provide employees with contactless cards to secure access to facilities, networks and more.