GB: East of England:Nearly 62,000 pupils in region could have fingerprints recorded by their schools
According to a report published today (January 3) by Big Brother Watch, 124 schools replied when asked about biometric data with 57 of them confirming they used it.
Only 60 per cent of those schools had parental permission to use the technology.
The data was obtained through freedom of information requests dating back to May 2012.
The report also highlights inconsistencies in the information that is provided in the consent process and shows a letter from one school addressed to pupils asking them to meet in the lunch hall to have their thumb prints taken.
Biometric data can be used for paying at canteens for example.
Legislation was introduced, with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, allowing the use of biometric technologies in schools for the first time but parents and pupils were given a legal guarantee that no finger prints would be taken without explicit consent being obtained first.
Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, said: “As the new school term gets underway, now is the time for parents to check if their children are among the hundreds of thousands of pupils who are using biometric technology.
“Going to school should not mean kids are taught they have no privacy, especially at a time when we are sharing more data about ourselves than ever before. Fingerprinting them and tracking what they do might save some admin work but the risk is pupils think it is normal to be tracked like this all the time. Schools need to be transparent about what data is being collected and how it is used.
"Parents will be rightly concerned to hear so many schools did not seek their permission to fingerprint their children, while pupils may not have been made aware they now have a legal right to ask to use a system that doesn't require a fingerprint to be taken. The Government was right to change the law but it’s up to parents to make sure the law is being followed."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Rpert Marquand
Quelle/Source: Bedfordshire News, 01.01.2014
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