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Another school starts fingerprinting students

Childfingerprint Just before Christmas, Tory PPC Andrea Leadsom wrote a guest piece about her discovery that schools were regularly taking the fingerprints of their students as a means of identification.

In her post, she said that she would be writing to her local council to ask that they reject any attempts by schools in her area to introduce fingerprint scans.

However, today we have been called by a supporter in Hull who has flagged that a school in his local area has begun gathering fingerprints despite the objections of the council leader.

As reported by the Hull Daily Mail:

City council leader Carl Minns has criticised Hull Trinity House School for installing a biometric fingerprint system for pupils to get their school meals.

Councillor Minns says it goes against guidance issued to schools by the council.

The school, in Princes Dock Street, city centre, started using the system this week. Cllr Minns told the Mail: "My principal objection is on the grounds of information security.

"At some point the school will have to store a child's data on a computer and if it is subject to hacking or proper security is not there, then once the data is out there, it is out there for life and you can't get it back."

In recent days Big Brother Watch has been encouraging its supporters to bombard several misbehaving local councils, so it is refreshing to see a council leader showing such commonsense and concern for individual privacy.  

Councillor Carl Minns we applaud you for this stance and we will keep our readers updated on the progress of the council in getting Hull Trinity House School to reverse its position.

By Dylan Sharpe

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Big Brother Watch Posted in Overbearing state
  • tony

    It seems amazing to me that schools can arbitrarily decide to take sensitive personal information from minors. Presumably their parents have to agree before fingerprints are taken? This is just another case of ‘because we can, we will’.
    Keep up the good work.

  • LeChiffre

    @ tony
    The parents are not necessarily asked before the fingerprints are taken and may be presented with a fait accompli.

  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    As I said last time, biometric systems often don’t store the actual fingerprint, instead storing feature points, which will be specific to the system in use and couldn’t be used to reconstruct the original print with any accuracy.
    The same, incidentally, is true of other types of biometric identification systems.
    Why do they do this? Well, for one thing, feature point data is much smaller. For another, it’s what they actually compare! They don’t need (or want) an image of a fingerprint, or your iris or retina or whatever else.
    So, unless these biometric systems are very unusual, schools *ARE NOT “TAKING FINGERPRINTS”*.
    For this reason, the concern over information security is largely unfounded.

  • http://torytottyonline.com Tory Totty Online

    This is an outrageous breach of personal security. Who knows where this data will end up!

  • LeChiffre

    @alastair
    Even taking feature point data grooms the child for more intrusive data collection in future so they may not think it a breach of personal security and dignity when required to enroll on the national identity register or get swabbed for DNA.
    The other negative feature of schools taking fingerprints is that it reduces the personal responsibility of the child to bring a library card into school on the day he or she wants to borrow books and to keep the card safe or to deal with money when at the school canteen. Children are going to think money grows on the ends of their fingertips!

  • ombulu

    le Chiffre’s assertion about the data which being collected not being sufficient to recreate a fingerprint is incorrect. This data has already been used to recreate fingerprints.

  • Paul

    My daughters school sent out a letter informing us they were introducing this system dated 10th May. The letter came by post but didnt arrive until Friday 14th May. My daughters fingerprint was then taken without my permission on Monday 17th may.
    I am furious as I am then expected to credit her so called biometric account in advance therefore not knowing how secure the PRIVATE company running this scheme is, or who would have access to my bank details.
    I then have no control over what my daughter spends per day as I would by giving her a set amount each day.
    There are so many flaws with this system but more worryingly I believe it is against both mine and my daughters civil liberty as no parent as far as I am aware was asked in advance as to whether we objected to this so called trial system being introduced.

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