During the new McKinley school year, finger scanning was introduced into the cafeteria lines along with more counters now open for students, faculty and staff. At the start of the first week of school, students went to the cafeteria with their English class to get their fingers scanned.
Vice Principal David Pila said the purpose of the identiMetric (finger scan) is to use a picture of your fingerprint, to allow students to get their lunch or meals.
IDs are mandatory. However, students sometimes forget them, or they lose them and they can’t get food.
“A student will never lose their finger,” Pila said.
He said identiMetrics does not take a picture of your entire fingerprint, but rather only small points on your fingerprint. These points can not be used for complete identification or identity theft.
“At the end of the day, all scanned fingerprints will be discarded or deleted. And it starts anew again,” Pila said.
Danielle Cummings (c/o 2026) said she gets food from the cafeteria almost every day.
“I think that it’s definitely easier. With IDs, it takes longer and more lines means it goes increasingly faster,” Cummings said.
Journey Pollescas (c/o 2025) also gets food from the cafeteria almost every day. She said she noticed a change from last year.
“[There are] faster lines and [it’s] much more convenient,” Pollescas said.
Jasmine Le (c/o 2025) said she also occasionally gets food from the cafeteria.
“I like it because it’s faster and easier in case someone forgets their ID,” Le said.
Principal Ron Okamura is also optimistic about other uses of identiMetrics at McKinley. He said that nearly 90% of McKinley students have had their finger scanned and he plans to do other things with this technology in the future, such as check-ins via fingerprint scan in every class.
“Yeah, so I enjoy that piece of it because I think it offers a lot more opportunities to us, and it’s more user-friendly,” Okamura said.
