The Encinitas Union School District recently terminated a contract that would have given students the option of logging into their district-issued iPads via facial recognition technology.

An online petition called for the end of the contract because of privacy concerns over iPad biometrics — facial scans — authenticating students. But this week, Encinitas school district Superintendent Tim Baird said the contract was canceled because the technology didn’t work with all iPad programs.

“There were a couple programs that were really a problem,” Baird said.

Last fall, the district board signed a deal with the company Virtual Keyring, which was tasked with developing software so that students could log in to all their iPad programs via biometrics or a single keyed-in password. Baird said that facial recognition was merely optional.

“I know there were a few people that were making a big deal over the facial recognition,” he said. “That was never an important point to us.”

A petition at change.org to end the contract gained 361 signatures.

Some parents wrote that it was just too much money to spend on bypassing passwords. Others said they didn’t want their kids’ faces stored as biometric data.

How facial biometrics work: An iPad takes several pictures, compares those with an existing encrypted image and verifies the person’s identity. Virtual Keyring’s website states that only company support can see or access the encrypted images.

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