Kids Fingerprinted for Fla. School Bus Rides

For the past month, students in Lee County, Fla., have been thumbprinted every time they get on and off the school bus.

Lou Karnbach, director of the county's student transportation said the system is intended to keep students safe.

"This is a system that recognizes by numbers that somebody got on the bus ... when he got on the bus, and the location he got on the bus," she said.

The pilot program combines thumbprint tracking with global positioning systems that monitor driving habits like speed, stops and starts and overall safety.

But critics say thumbprinting school kids and putting them on what they call "Big Brother buses" is wrong.

"We're currently living in a surveillance society where every movement action and utterance is being tracked or correlated," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union (search ). "It's not too late to put a halt to this. It's not too late to stop this growing monster."

In January, Karie Rathburn's son Todd was forgotten on a school bus before being found by another driver and taken to school . She's all for safety, but not fingerprinting.

"I feel it is a violation of the children's rights," she said.