Florida State lawmakers are moving speedily to ban biometric use on schoolchildren, but the use of biometric identification isn’t going away. Biometrics uses physical characteristics that can be measured —fingerprints, irises, voices— to identify a person. At its most basic, even a photo ID badge is a biometric identifier.

The example now causing a ruckus is in Pinellas County. Schools there use palm scanners to authorize withdrawals from pre-paid accounts, moving lunch lines faster, and giving students more time to eat. That ruckus, however, so far has been stirred by legislators, not parents.

State Sen. Dorothy Hukill, R-Port Orange, says she caught wind of the practice and grew alarmed. She also knew about Polk County schools scanning children’s eyes to track comings and goings on school buses.

“What are we doing in government in terms of taking biometric information?” she said, mentioning her concern that the information could be breached and used for identity theft. “I think a ban is definitely the way to go,” she said, “I want to protect school kids.”

Beyond the security fears and Big Brother-type anxiety, advocates say biometric authentication simply exists to answer the question: Are you who you say you are.[…]