Free school meals
I heard from someone who was involved in the early days of biometrics. Some school children got free school meals, others had to pay. A teacher used to monitor the pupils and check who was/was not meant to pay for the meals. Because this showed up the kids who had free school meals, someone thought this might not be a good idea. The school got involved with a project to scan the eyeball of each child, and automatically record who had what.
It used to take the teacher 2 seconds to "tick the list" as the pupils came past. With the new technology it took about 10 seconds. They introduced a second eye scanner which helped, but was still slower.
At the end of the trial, the school decided to go back to the paper way of doing it. The company with the equipment said they learned a lot from it, getting the developers out into the field. For example these developers learned that children are of different heights, and so their equipment needs to handle this. Obvious once you see it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
