Palm scanning for grad students raises fears

www.thestar.com

In a move that has prompted at least three complaints to Canada's privacy czar, a growing number of professional programs such as medicine and business now require students to give a digital print of their finger, thumb or even veins in their palm to write the high-stakes entrance tests designed and run out of the United States.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 11-1-2010 by GoneGrey]

There always seems to be some justifcation for this kind of Big Brother action.

Makes one wonder if there isn't some central personal info data bank where all of this is ending up.

Instead of feeling 'protected' by these attempts to identify system abuses before they happen, I can't help but feel violated.



[edit on 11-1-2010 by GoneGrey]

Well...

They need to make sure it is the actual person taking the test.

How would YOU propose to make absolutely sure it was the student and not another person?

What happened to the days of showing the old drivers license/state ID? And who's to say that if you wanted to cheat bad enough you couldn't devise a way to fool the scanners. Mythbusters did a fine job fooling a fingerprint scanner...

reply to post by mrmonsoon


It seems that in order to intercept the few who would try to abuse the system, the solution always seems to revolve around obtaining the personal identifying information of the scores who are not attempting to break rules.

Are these scans and associated personal information retained in a data bank somewhere, and if so, why?

There's always some new excuse for agencies obtaining photos, blood samples, biometric data, etc. of the population at large -- not just offenders.