An Encounter With the Future

There was a track and field day at one of the local schools. A couple of my friends and I were volunteered to help with the activities. Our task was like herding cats - chaotic but fun. Most of us stayed to help with the afternoon activities. Since I and a few others did not think to bring any lunch, we wandered into the school cafeteria for a break and some food. That is when we ran into the future.

There was no place to pay. Cash is not used. The method used is a fingerprint scan-to-pay system. The cafeteria had no way to handle our cash. - When we asked the cafeteria supervisor what we could do, he told us that we could fill in some forms, have our fingerprints scanned and be part of the data base.

I was not going to submit biometric data in order to have a salad and a bottle of water. There was no possible way that was going to happen - and fortunately, the other ‘non data base people’ with me felt the same way. The principal volunteered to put this on her biometric account. However, when the amount went through the data base, it exceeded her daily food expenditure allowance. Her lunch expenditure was rejected. It could not process that amount. It was not an outrageous amount but I guess people have to be protected from buying too much in one day - even if you are the principal of the school.

In the end, we had a free lunch. It was easier than working out a solution to somehow pay. No one wanted to leave biometric data - and credit card information, just so that we could have a ‘one time lunch’ there.

What is wrong with having the kids pay with cash and learning, in a school setting, how to manage money? Is keeping a data base of what was bought for lunch more important?

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]the next wave, fingerprint, biometric data, schools, cash, data base, money management[/tags]