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Coming for the Kids: Big Brother and the Pied Pipers of Surveillance by Ben Hayes and Max Rowlands

01 April 2008

We were asked to write this article after giving a talk to privacy advocates in Canada in which we noted the widespread deployment of biometric identification systems – fingerprinting – in British schools. This practice, we suggested, is but one feature of a rapidly developing "surveillance society" in the UK in which so-called "kiddyprinting" is among a host of measures aimed at keeping tabs on British children

"Are we sending our kids to school or prison"?

According to the Leave Them Kids Alone campaign, a staggering two million children have now had their fingerprints taken in 3,500 UK schools. It is estimated that twenty more schools introduce the practice every week. (3) The most widely used systems are Micro Librarian Systems' "Junior Librarian", which uses fingerprint scanners in place of library cards to check books in and out, and VeriCool's biometric class registration and cashless catering systems. VeriCool's parent company, Anteon, also happens to be a leading supplier of technology and training to the US military with controversial links to detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, as well as news services in Africa and the Balkans that broadcast American views and propaganda.

Perhaps the most contentious aspects of "kiddyprinting" (and there are many) is the way in which many schools have implemented these systems without notifying parents. Although the UK government has issued non-statutory guidance on the use of biometrics in schools, it stopped short of introducing a legal requirement for parental consent. (4) More non-binding guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (equivalent to the Canadian Privacy Commissioner) recommends that "the sensitivity of the issue [demands] schools follow best practice and ask permission of parent and pupil before they take fingerprints". (5) However, this is frequently not the case, with some schools going as far as to threaten those who refuse to enrol with expulsion. Last year the Department for Education and Skills criticised several schools that refused to provide food to children who would not participate in their biometric catering system.

In a 2007 debate in the House of Lords, Baroness Walmsley argued that "the practice of fingerprinting in schools has been banned in China as being too intrusive and an infringement of children's rights. Yet here it is widespread". The NO2ID campaign is no less outraged, asking: "are we sending our kids to school or to prison? We wouldn't accept fingerprinting for adults without informed consent so it is utterly outrageous that children as young as five are being targeted". (6)

Spurious debate

The technology suppliers, together with the schools that use their systems, are quick to dismiss fears about privacy and children's rights, arguing that these are far outweighed by the benefits to school and child. Their claims range from the banal to the ridiculous. Micro Librarian Systems asserts that "Identikit biometric solutions encourage school library lending", but provides no evidence to corroborate the suggestion that there is a link between fingerprinting and the desire to learn. Similarly: "Absenteeism. Could it be a thing of the past?", asks the VeriCool website, as if high-tech registration systems in place of traditional class registers could somehow tempt truant children back to school.

Another major concern is that such routine breaches of children's privacy are occurring at an age where they can scarcely be expected to understand the implications. VeriCool say that children like the system because "they feel like they are in Doctor Who" (a popular British sci-fi television series). Our fear is that taking personal data from children in wholly unnecessary situations is conditioning them into accepting the wider development of a "surveillance society".

In any case, the debate about whether it is acceptable to fingerprint children may be all but over. In 2005 the European Union agreed on the mandatory fingerprinting of all EU passport-holders. (7) It is now discussing the practical implementation of this Regulation. As far as children are concerned, the only question now is whether this practice will begin at six-years-old, the current position of the EU member states, or twelve-years-old, the current position of the European Parliament.

From "kiddyprinting" to "kiddychipping"

Perhaps absenteeism could be a thing of the past. Among its contracts with the US government, VeriCool's parent company Anteon provides "alien" ID cards to Mexican citizens on the US border. The company also holds a patent over the "VeriChip", a human implant RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip that can be used for identity verification and location tracking. Several years ago it proposed the chip become mandatory for all immigrant workers entering the US.

Despite the common technological base, VeriCool insists that its defence and educational activities are entirely separate. It is certainly difficult to make any ethical distinction. Following the murder in August 2005 of Rory Blackhall, an eleven-year-old Scottish schoolboy, Anteon UK Ltd. e-mailed some 340 local authorities. "Dear Sir or Madam", read its communication, "like everyone else, we were shocked and saddened by the apparent murder of the young schoolboy in West Lothian. We believe that we can help reduce the possibility of such future tragedies and so wish to bring to your attention our new anti-truancy and first day contact system that is already in use by some schools in the UK". The UK Advertising Standards Authority banned the advert on the basis that it was "offensive and distressing" to capitalise on "a recent probable murder as means of promoting the product."

Although it does tread such dubious moral ground, it may be unfair to single out VeriCool. Countless IT companies are now engaged in competition to gain a foothold in the rapidly developing and highly lucrative educational-surveillance market. In October 2007, a school in Doncaster began trials of a system that uses RFID chips in school uniforms to track the attendance, location and movement of its pupils. Danbro, the local company which supplied the technology, cites fears about child safety as well as the usual administrative benefits. Trutex, "Britain's favourite schoolwear supplier", has also announced plans to chip schoolchildren via their uniforms. (8)

Caring is sharing: childhood on file

It is not just the private sector that uses tragedy to sell surveillance policies. The government's "Every Child Matters" strategy of 2003 followed a public inquiry into the catastrophic failures of social services in the case of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old who suffered prolonged and horrific abuse before being killed by her foster parents. At the heart of the resulting strategy is the creation of a central database that will track the progress of every child in England and Wales from birth.

The Children's Act 2004 provided the government with the sweeping new powers it required to implement the strategy and a trilogy of interconnected databases are now being constructed. First is "ContactPoint", an index of the name, address and date of birth, along with contact details for parents, doctors and schools, of every single child. This system will be launched towards the end of 2008; every child will have a unique number from birth. Later, it will be joined by the "Electronic Common Assessment Framework" (eCAF), an in-depth profiling mechanism designed to monitor children's progress and well-being. Information about parents, relatives and carers will also be included in the belief that this will help identify and protect vulnerable or at risk children. The third system is the "Integrated Children's System" (ICS), which will hold the records of social services and child protection officers.

Together, ContactPoint, eCAF and ICS will provide schools, social workers, police, doctors and local authorities with a previously unimaginably detailed picture of our children's lives. Not surprisingly then, calls to scrap the system have come from far and wide. The case against can be summarised as follows: 1) it will stigmatise children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, potentially well into their adult life; 2) the vast sums of money being thrown at the technology (ContactPoint alone has already cost close to £250 million) would be far better spent addressing a chronic shortage of social workers, particularly in deprived areas; 3) it is quite probably illegal, far exceeding the permissible limits of UK law regulating the collection of personal data and European law protecting personal privacy; 4) it will be all but impossible to ensure the integrity and security of the data due of the breadth of access envisaged (a point conceded by government appointed auditors (9).

For all the apocryphal claims that the MySpace and Facebook generation no longer cares about privacy, qualitative research by the UK Children's Commissioner suggests that older children in particular are in fact deeply concerned and sceptical of the government's motives. We should in no way confuse the desire to be seen by other people with a desire to be watched by the state.

From nanny state to police state

Given the current government mania for risk management along with technological advances in risk profiling, it seems inevitable that once implemented these databases will not just be used to identify potentially vulnerable children, but potentially "dangerous" ones as well. In contrast to all the government's talk about protecting children, it has also introduced the most authoritarian "youth justice" policies in Europe. The "Anti-Social Behaviour Order" (ASBO) has been the cornerstone of Labour's deeply conservative campaign to restore a "culture of respect" in British society for the past five years.

For those unfamiliar with the legislation, it allows police or local authorities to apply to a magistrate or county court for an ASBO banning an individual from committing any specified act or entering specific geographical locations (or both) for a minimum of two years (no maximum period was mandated, and in extreme cases people have received life ASBOs). Because they are civil (rather than criminal) orders the procedure is accelerated, there is no jury and "hearsay" evidence is admissible.

By the end of 2006, some 12,675 people had received an ASBO. Prior government assurances that they would be used against children only in "exceptional circumstances" proved wholly false; more than fifty per cent of ASBO applications concern children under 16 years old. Individuals as young as ten (the minimum age limit) have received ASBOs banning them from – and effectively criminalising them for – playing football in the street, riding a bike, wearing a hood or using certain words. As preposterous as this seems, breaching an ASBO is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison for adults, and a two-year detention and training order for children.

Indeed, the greatest achievement of anti-social behaviour legislation may actually have been to speed entry into the criminal justice system. The fact that half of all ASBOs are breached demonstrates just how spectacularly an ineffective deterrent they are. On the contrary, children frequently embrace their ASBO as a "badge of honour" (11)

Taking DNA samples from children

Since April 2004, anyone over the age of ten years who is arrested in England or Wales, for any recordable offence (i.e. however minor), can have their DNA and fingerprints taken without their consent, or that of their parents in the case of minors. Both records are kept forever in police databases, regardless of whether the arrest is followed by a criminal charge, let alone conviction. Of 4.3 million profiles added to the UK DNA database since 1995, as many as 1.1 million belong to people who were under 18 yesrs old at the time the sample was taken. (11)

Crimonologists have long warned that police officers might target children they see as potential troublemakers and arrest them for minor offences so as to secure their inclusion in the database, believing that this will make their job easier in the future. This was confirmed as police policy by Gary Pugh, DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, who suggested that children as young as five should be considered eligible for the database if they exhibit behaviour consistent with criminality in later life.(12)

Sources

1. "Privacy Rights in a World Under Surveillance", Civil Society Workshop, 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, Montreal, 25 September 2007.
2."Surveillance society", Ben Hayes, Red Pepper, January-February 2008: http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Surveillance-Society.
3. http://www.leavethemkidsalone.com/
4. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/jul/uk-biometrics-in-schools.pdf.
5. http://www.statewatch.org/news/2007/jul/uk-biometrics-in-schools-ico.pdf.
6. See http://www.no2id.net
7. Regulation 2252/2004/EC. On its implementation see http://www.statewatch.org/news/2006/aug/02eu-fingerprinting-children.htm
8. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/22/kid_chipping_doncaster_go
9. On children's databases see the extensive report by Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR), available at: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/ico_issues_paper_protecting_chidrens_personal_information.pdf See also Action on Rights for Children, http://www.arch-ed.org.
10. On a host of ASBO-related issues see
http://www.statewatch.org/asbo/ASBOwatch.html
11.Source:Telegraph,21 March 2008, available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1582362/One-million-children-on-DNA-database.html
12. Source: Guardian, 16 March 2008, available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/16/youthjustice.children

This article first appeared in “Our Schools/Our Selves”, Summer 2008. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.