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The Freedom Association highlights the fact that another school is about to start fingerprinting the children who attend it

TFA As Simon Richards puts it over at The Freedom Association - it's no food without fingerprints at St John's Secondary School in Epping.

Along with a guest post on the subject, We've expressed our feelings on this appalling policy before (and schemes like it) and I thought I'd take the opportunity to flag the very useful information available over at Pippa King's website – a useful resource for everyone, particularly any parent thinking about opposing such a policy…

If this is happening at your child's school, and you want help in opposing it, get in touch.

By Alex Deane

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Alex Deane Posted in Databases
  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    Yet again, hysterical coverage on Big Brother Watch of this issue, and yet again, I must highlight that the schools WILL NOT BE KEEPING RECORDS OF PUPIL’S FINGERPRINTS.
    I repeat what I have said several times already; the data that is retains is a PROFILE of the fingerprint consisting of a set of FEATURE POINTS. You cannot reconstruct the original finger print from this data; it is ONLY useful for use with the biometric security equipment that is being used by the school.

  • Sandy

    Hysterical or not Alistair, there is no harm in keeping a very close eye on what you are up to.By the way no need to use CAPS it makes you look somewhat ‘hysterical’ . I always relate CAPS to shouting and when one needs to shout to prove their case, they lose their argument.

  • Shy Hermit

    @alastair
    Thanks for your clarification, facts are good.
    Obviously you feel comfortable about training the nations children to submit to this sort of practice in these trivial, everyday situations. Do you have no concerns about the psychological impact this could have on some individuals?
    When I was young, fingerprinting was a shameful thing to be made to submit to. A calculated humiliation.

  • http://www.leavethemkidsalone.com Jon Winterburn

    Alastair – try getting your facts right before spouting bullshit.
    Firstly, the US government’s official National Science & Technology Council’s (NSTC) Subcommittee on Biometrics was asked if a biometric fingerprint or photo can be reconstructed from a template and their answer was: “There have been studies where pseudo-fingerprint images have been reconstructed from the fingerprint template, and face images have been reconstructed from face templates. In these instances, it is essential that specific information about the enrollment process is known.”
    Secondly, have you even bothered to research this? I have and here a just 2 R&D websites which contradict your argument: http://tinyurl.com/bioreconstruct
    and: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/TPAMI.2007.1087
    And finally, the issue we as parents have with schools introducing this system is not ONLY one of security. It is also the fact that the schools bring this system in against parents wishes and without our consent (my son’s former school informed us we “have no choice” so we pulled him out).
    This is illegal, unethical and immoral.

  • Sandy
  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    Alastair – even if you’re right, biometric readers possessed by people OTHER than the school could process this information… no?

  • http://www.swsurrey-home-ed.co.uk/wordpress/index.php Firebird

    Yet again someone arguing it’s all OK on the basis of the technical specs (which can change) and ignoring the conditioning aspect. I was discussing just this point with other parents today, the way schools are being used to train children to accept ID cards and the rest without question, things that our generation are deeply suspicious of.

  • Purlieu

    Indeed, in 20 years time these kids will be wanting to close down BBW.
    I can’t help noticing the similarities between what’s happening today in schools (and elsewhere) and what happenned in Germany in the 30′s. Like it’s being used as a template.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/alexdeane Alex Deane

    Spot on Firebird – conditioning. A good term and one we will shamelessly steal from you for future use!

  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    1. I used caps solely because this is the third time recently that stories about “fingerprinting” children have come up, all of which have been written as if it was possible to somehow recover and use the child’s fingerprint for some nefarious purpose.
    It would appear that writing in upper case was successful since at least the commenters are paying attention!
    2. @Jon Winterburn: Actually I *do* have my facts right. You *cannot* reconstruct the original fingerprint or the original image from the template. It may in some cases be possible to construct a pattern that can fool a similar device, but to do so you need detailed information on exactly what the device is looking for. This is what the NSTC Subcommittee was talking about.
    Both of the papers you cite are talking about the same kind of thing. They *are not* talking about being able to reconstruct the original fingerprint or the original image… just enough to fool a similar type of scanner.
    So I repeat: the information is only useful with the scanners that are in use at the school involved. I said this above, and I have said it before too.

  • http://alastairs-place.net alastair

    @Alex:
    Yes, in theory, but it would take a sophisticated attacker to (a) recover the templates and (b) synthesise false images that could be used with other similar equipment.
    We aren’t talking about the kind of drive-by hacking attack that was suggested on one of the previous posts on this fingerprinting topic; that *might* be able to recover the templates, but there’s still the somewhat trickier step of using them to come up with a false image, and in the case of a fingerprint scanner you’re also then going to have to manufacture a fake finger that is capable of satisfying the scanner you’re trying to fool.
    A much more worrying aspect of the use of fingerprint scanners is the thought that it might induce some criminals to remove the fingers of their victims in an attempt to bypass the scanner. That’s *much* more unpleasant than the thought of losing a template, which as I say (and I’m backed-up by the NSTC Subcommittee here – thanks Jon for finding that) is highly dependent on the device that is being used.
    @Firebird:
    No, not on the basis of technical specs. On the basis of how the fingerprint matching process works. You’re right that technical specs can change, but the way fingerprint matching takes place is unlikely to IMO.
    I agree with the point about conditioning people to think this is OK, *but* keep in mind that I also think that the “current” view on the subject, on this website at least, tends towards the hysterical end of the spectrum. That is why I’m posting on this topic, actually, to try to counter-balance it a little.

  • guy herbert

    I largely agree with alastair, to the extent that I think the fury is misdirected.
    I’m not much bothered by the use of fingerprints for such purposes, IFF the information collected and linked to the individual is only used for the single purpose in a closed system AND it is one-to-one matching for the purpose of unlocking something.
    The trouble is, in addition to the conditioning point, in the behaviour and beliefs of the authorities surrounding computerised records and biometrics.
    1. The DCSF in particular has powers and a cult(ure) that mandate hoovering up any readily accessible information abour children and families the better to monitor them by. Had I children I would therefore not want their school to keep any more information about them in electronic form than absolutely necessary. You should worry more, in other words, about the details of their meals, attendance, library borrowings etc, being “shared” rather than their fingerprints.
    2. Officialdom likes the idea of unitary and compact personal files “infallibly” cross-linked by biometrics, which it does not care to understand any more than its more hysterical critics. In particular it uses its foolishly rigid misconception of the perfection of biometric security to traverse from applications with one-to-one matching to one-to many matching, and to strip out other requirements of authentication. Bureaucracy is so intolerant of uncertainty that it presumes it out of existence and proceeds from there.
    The Bad Man theory of stolen data vaunted by anti-printers is missing this vital point. Fingerprints, templates, or reverse engineered pseudoprints are not dangerous in themselves, and scarcely of much value to someone who “steals” them, unless potentiated by being made to have consequences in your life. Which they will be, if bureaucracy is permitted to do it.
    We all leave our fingerprints everywhere. The greasy surface of my desk is undoubtedly one huge montage of my fingerprints. But currently it is rarely consequential. With widespread one-to-many matching and single-factor ‘biometric security’ then the consequences suddenly become as many as the bureaucratic sytems using it.