UPDATED: Sept. 14, 2021 at 11:50 a.m.

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Syracuse University’s Housing, Meal Plan, and I.D. Card Services has implemented fingerprint scanning in dining halls for students with unlimited meal plans. 

In an email sent to students with unlimited meal plans, the office said the new technology is supposed to reduce the time waiting in line. The email asked students to register their hands at Steele Hall 206 by Sept. 17.

“The primary goal (to implement fingerprint scanning) is to facilitate a quicker, contactless entrance into campus dining centers,” said Jennifer Horvath, communications director of SU’s Business, Finance and Administrative Services, in an email to The Daily Orange. The new technology will decrease wear and tear on SUIDs and increase the lifespan of the cards, she said.

Vir V. Phoha, an electrical engineering and computer science professor at SU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, said touchless fingerprint scanning can both reduce the exposure risks of COVID-19 and enhance the accuracy of the authentication process. 

“Fingerprints are unique to an individual,” Phoha said. “In case of biometrics, you cannot share your biometrics with anybody else.”

But multiple students using unlimited meal plans this fall said they believe logging their fingerprints is unnecessary. 

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, because biometrics are very personal and private information to me,” said Zell Vidal, a senior studying finance and information management and technology. “Giving that to the university is a line that I’m personally not comfortable crossing.”

“If you got arrested or something, maybe that’s when you give a fingerprint,” said Colin Hardy, a junior studying sport analytics at SU’s Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics. “But to have access to food, which is like a pretty basic right, I don’t know why you need your fingerprint.”

While the housing and meal plan office said utilizing hand screening could reduce the time for students with unlimited meal plans to wait in line, students are worried about how their biometrics information will be handled. 

“Waiting in line is such a minor inconvenience,” said Hardy, who also said giving up your fingerprint could become a “major inconvenience if that thing gets out.”

The university revealed in February that the names and Social Security numbers of nearly 10,000 SU students, alumni and applicants had been compromised due to a data breach after someone gained unauthorized access to an employee’s email account in September 2020. SU did not immediately notify the impacted individuals.

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More stories about SU’s 2021 data breach:

• Student files class action lawsuit against SU over data breach that affected 10,000
• SU defends response to data breach amid criticism, anger
• After data breach, Syracuse University’s silence is glaring
  
• SU data breach exposes nearly 10,000 names, Social Security numbers
  

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“With last year’s incident with social security card, like someone breaching in and getting all our Social Security information, that was a very big scare,” said Haley Tomasso, a senior public health major at Falk College. “So the last thing you need is for something like that to happen again, but now they have our fingerprints.”

Housing, Meal Plan, and I.D. Card Services does not store biometric data, Horvath said. The system uses a mathematical representation of a person’s biometrics data as a coded file, which is impossible to reverse engineer back into the original hand scan. 

The new technology will also apply to students with block meal plans in the future weeks, Horvath said. The office chose to implement for students with unlimited meal plans first because they will likely to dine in the dining halls most often. 

Many students said they would still prefer to use the GET mobile application to dine in the university’s dining halls. Horvath said that all payment methods, including the GET app and ID card swipes, will still be accepted. 

Vidal said they like the GET app because it provides access to the dining hall without compromising the safety of those working in the dining halls.

“Even though it may be convenient, sometimes there are certain things that shouldn’t be given up for convenience,” Vidal said. “Such as your bodily autonomy and your right to privacy.”

This post has been updated with additional reporting. 

Published on September 14, 2021 at 12:26 am

Contact Francis: [email protected] | @francis_towne