UK: "Are we sending our kids to school or to prison?"
01 May 2006
Fingerprint identification systems are increasingly being introduced to British schools without parental consent. Roughly two and a half million children have had their fingerprints taken at over 5,000 schools and around 20 more are introducing the practice every week according to the "Leave them kids alone" campaign. The most popular system, "Junior Librarian", has been marketed by Micro Librarian Systems since 2002 and uses a scanner to check books in and out of a school library. Another newer system, used for registration and cashless catering, is provided by VeriCool and has sparked further controversy because its parent company, Anteon, provides technology and training to the US military.
The conditions under which these systems are implemented seem to vary dramatically. While some parents have been consulted and assured that participation in the scheme is on a voluntary basis, the first knowledge others have had of their child being fingerprinted came after the event. Further, often even if parents are notified they are not asked to give their consent. Some schools, such as St Matthew's Primary in Cambridge, have gone as far as to make the scheme compulsory and sixth-formers at Edgbarrow school in Berkshire claim to have been threatened with expulsion if they refuse to participate in a new thumbprint attendance scheme. Phil Booth of NO2ID asks: "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."
Recently the "Leave them kids alone" campaign has been launched to bring attention to the escalating number of systems in place, but in general the fact that there has been so little objection and public debate highlights just how fully biometric based technology is beginning to pervade society. Rightly or wrongly fingerprinting is associated with criminality and represents a breach of a child's personal privacy at an age where they are unable to understand the implications. VeriCool say that children like the system because "they feel like they are in
Doctor Who" but it serves to normalise the handing out of unique personal data.
This desensitisation is of particular concern given inherent worries over the security of and access to these fingerprint records. The fundamental concern with using biometric data as a method of verifying a person's identity is that, unlike a password or a pin number, it cannot be cancelled or changed but is permanently attached to you; if it is compromised it is compromised forever. It follows that such data needs to be especially well protected, particularly at a time when identity theft is an ever-increasing problem. An August 2006 YouGov poll found that 9% of Britons claim to have been a victim of identity fraud.
Accordingly, David Clouter of the "Leave them kids alone" campaign argues: "I do not think that a school is a secure enough place to store such information - if someone got hold of it they could use it for identity theft at any point in my daughter's future." Makers of the systems say that only a series of points on the finger are stored which cannot then be used to recreate the full fingerprint, and that the data is encrypted making it very hard to hack. Andrew Clymer, an IT consultant who has written on the subject, doubts these claims: "What we've seen in the last ten years is what's true in IT today isn't necessarily true in future. Anybody who says it is secure and can't be compromised is a liar."
The potential for the misuse of data once taken was also highlighted in July 2006 when
The Observer revealed that LGC, a private firm responsible for analysing data before it is submitted to the police National DNA Database, has been secretly keeping the biometric samples of hundreds of thousands of people. The paper also disclosed that the Home Office has authorised a controversial genetic study of these DNA<