Fingerprinting of children has got worse, with "more and more schools falling over themselves" to get pupil biometrics, a rights group has told TechEye.
Action on Rights for Children (ARCH) is wondering if the rush is because of proposed changes in the Freedom bill.
Currently, schools don't have to ask for parental consent to take fingerprints from children - which can be used to access classrooms, take books out of the library or as a way to provide cashless school dinners.
However, if the bill goes ahead, it will mean schools will require consent from both the parent and child to gain fingerprints.
Terri Dowty, director at ARCH, told TechEye: "Schools are falling over themselves to get fingerprinting before the new rules come into place. We're pleased about the new proposals, which will mean that children's parents get a say.
"Not only does the current system mean that young children can be coaxed into this but it also sets a dangerous president for privacy in the future. If a child is taught that it's ok to give their fingerprints to anyone who asks - then later on we could see some security breaches."
She points out that headteachers could have take issue to amendments, as parents unsurprisingly have qualms about letting their children get fingerprinted.
She's not alone in thinking this. A recent poll by the Guardian found that 90 percent of parents were unhappy about the practice, while a deputy head teacher also told us he had seen some resistance from parents.
The deputy, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells us: "If the bill goes ahead it will make life harder as parents aren't always happy about it, but we haven't been increasing this because we're worried.
"That said there has been mutterings from the governors that we should speed up the process before we have to ask for consent."
He also provided insight into the way some schools think.
"We've been fingerprinting children since the ICO gave us the go ahead back in 2001. We usually don't ask for parental consent because we haven't needed to, and with the younger ones we can turn it into a little game.
"There's nothing wrong with it. We only use them for access to the library and as a quick way to order school dinners," he added.
The Information Commissioner's Office currently states: "There is nothing explicit in the Data Protection Act to require schools to seek consent from all parents before implementing a fingerprinting application.
"However, unless schools can be certain that all children understand the implications of giving their fingerprints, they must fully involve parents in order to ensure that the information is obtained fairly."
Ms Dowty said the ICO was "wrong" when it made the rules in 2001.
In an unpublished document, ARCH explains that the practice began when a company called Microlibrarian systems (MLS) approached the ICO to ask for comments on the company’s plans to incorporate biometric fingerprint readers into school library systems, replacing the use of cards.
The ICO raised no objections and in fact supplied MLS with a letter endorsing the use of fingerprinting. MLS then approached the DfES (as it then was) with this letter, and the use of biometrics was approved.
With the new rules in place, really it will be the companies selling biometric systems - and that's around 34 - that will suffer.
If there's less demand there will be less need for their systems.
But a spokesperson for Microlibrarian Systems told TechEye that it wasn't fussed: "Personally I haven't heard any concerns from the company, it doesn't seem like it'll be a concern and if you have to ask for consent then you have to ask for it."
When all a human ever does is to bark in company and then howl in solitude, he is a variable entity and as such, trust should never be factored into the safety of whatever that is being created. To trust that a moving target, when it is sitting still, is a dead duck is to relinquish the consequences [of the future]. The era of digitisation mirrors the era of infinitising, that of easy-come, easy-go, Control being latent Abandonment. Any database of records will soon be available to the highest bidder. 101%, the extra 1% being for the Doubting & Mesmerised Thomases. That means control for control sake and not for “safety”, “health” and whatever the stupid and the dumb may rationalised the control is for. It is for pricing. Not that all do not know, it is just that control should not be used as a front for anything else. You wanna control, say so and let all decide. Not when the stupid and the dumb could be groomed into arguing the “finer points”, stating their asking price and then being bought for a much cheaper price.
Why is the Inland Revenue, The Criminal Justice System and The Health System always putting money before anything else? Because it is all about [other peoples’] money first and last with all the justifications sitting in between. Being specialists at turning night into day, the justifying jokers then turn everything inside out to explain that the justifications came before the money. And look where all the money went after all the digitising projects had failed. 0.5% commission on £100 million is mucho gracia. Paedophilia is only the patsy/opportunist, it is control upon control that is the future [hope] of the game. Not that it will be a runaway success because everything changes but a good old rogering could be derived in the meantime. Now, push hard - those little fingers, heh heh, what do you think.
Those who still have a brain and a heart to count upon should realise asap that the majority, minority, opposition and just about anything else within humanity will not be able to do much because when absoluteness is nowhere to be found, viewpoints/disagreements will always prevail. That means a gamble was successful should the rationalising works out but being a real gamble, the feared consequences will happened one fine day with no one to answer for it other than to “learn from it” - to gamble upon a gamble. All the justifications offered by the monkeys and donkeys acting as if it was AOK/a small little matter fit for drama queens will be the ones who won’t matter when those days arrive. Should you matter, ensure that absoluteness [not ritualism] is developed to afford the immunity required when those who have benefitted from their hand at plundering will be the only ones answering to their own consequences. Justifying/belittling/trivialising their complicity at begging, theft, control, abandonment and all for the sake of their own gains excused as blindness. All know whatever that they’d done whilst doing it. The more disproportionate the gain, the more we know of our complicity to our guilt.
Many thought that they’d got away with it - not when gangs roam the streets with toy/amateur soldiers shooting anything on sight and then worse. That is what the controls are for - when all is out of control. Unbeknownst to the tin soldiers and their masters, that is when The Real Soldiers will arrive. You wanna “trade the markets” for that raniy day? That is the day when all you’ve got belong to others/nobody. It will happen. Any bets on, say, 3 generations?
"...with the younger ones we can turn it into a little game..."
a little game to get them used to handing over personal information on demand without question
a little game that doesn't teach them the value of what they are handing over
a little game to stop them thinking and turn them into acquiescent sheep
a little game so they don't realise what is happening and by the time they are old enough they have suffered the informational equivalent of rape, but by then it's too late for them to do anything about it
there's a name for people who do things to children without their consent before they are old enough to understand that it's inappropriate or effectively resist, apparently they turn things into little games too