Parents in Polk County, Florida were outraged after being informed that their children’s irises had been scanned without permission as part of a new security program.

Parents first heard about the scheme in a letter sent out on Friday May 24, four days after the compulsory iris scans program had already begun.

The scans were taken as part of a new security program being introduced by the Polk County School Board, called Eye-Swipe Nano, which impacts students at Daniel Jenkins Academy, a high school, Davenport School of the Arts, a middle school, and Bethune Academy, an elementary school.

The school board intended to collect the children's iris scans to create a database of biometric information for school-bus security

The schools allowed officials from Stanley Convergent Security Solutions to take iris scans of students between May 20 and 22.  

The scans are essentially optical fingerprints, which the school intended to collect to create a database of biometric information for school-bus security, much like the technology used in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report.

In the letter send to parents, the school board described EyeSwipe as a safe and noninvasive way to collect student data, reports Techdirt.

The board claimed parents would know when and what bus a student boards, as well as when they arrive at school and leave from school.

The school board wanted to introduce a technology called EyeSwipe, which was similar to something previewed in the 2002 Tom Cruise movie Minority Report

The scans were taken as part of a new security program being introduced by the Polk County School Board at Bethune Academy, an elementary school

Parents were also told to contact the school principals if they didn’t want their child to participate in the scheme, but by that time every child had already been scanned.

Because of the Memorial Day weekend, parents angry that their children’s constitutional right to privacy had been violated weren’t able to contact the schools to voice their frustrations until the following Tuesday.

One parent took to Facebook, posting: ‘This is stolen information, and we cannot retrieve it.’

School board Senior Director of Support Services Rob Davis blamed a secretary with a medical emergency for the delayed letters.

He also praised the program and its security features.

'This was another way to provide extra level of security for them [parents] and the students,' he said.

However parents have since been informed that the pilot program had been suspended and that all records and scans from the program have been destroyed.

Parents first heard about the scheme in a letter sent out on Friday May 24, four days after the compulsory iris scans program had already begun