Local school wants to fingerprint our children!
27 03 2007
Although I jest about the mafia running our school in my previous posting, I have now a real concern. I have received a letter from the Head Teacher (sent to all parents) about a new system they are employing for the library. (Please click on the image opposite to view the letter in full.)
To cut a long story short, they want to fingerprint our children to track their use of the library books! The letter seems innocuous enough and goes some way to ease any worries, but it still sounds alarm bells in my head. Even though they state they are complying with all the legal requirements, it’s not compliance that’s the issue - it’s moral. Why do they feel the need to take biometric readings of a 5 year old to track his use of the books? It just sounds absurd and totally unnecessary, not to mention a complete invasion of privacy.
I know most parents at the school will no doubt just accept this out of apathy, which is what worries me. It’s apathy like this that allows governments to introduce monitoring into society one small step at a time. We seem to be sleep-walking into a surveillance society.
Having had a chat to my colleague Imran Ali about this, he made a valid point, “It’s a perfect test case - How to engineer acceptance of controversial social practices by wiring them into a school culture.”
I have also just come across an article here, which states that the system being employed is similar to identification systems used in US prisons and by the German military.
Simon Davies, a director at Privacy International, said “the use of such systems will have the effect of de-sensitising people to more comprehensive privacy invasion - such as ID cards and DNA testing - later in life”, which illustrates my point above. I shudder to think of my 5 year old growing up thinking that it is acceptable to give their fingerprints everywhere.
Doing a search on Google, it sounds like I’m not the only one concerned with such a system, which is reassuring. I was also directed to this site, which has some interesting information on the very subject.
I have just today drafted a letter to the Head Teacher (PDF Document), urging her to reconsider it’s use. I am hoping she will understand the implication of such a system and take a lead.
Update: There have now been some further developments on this issue. Please this post for an update.
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i would be interested to see the schools response to your letter
That poor old bat won’t understand half the words you’ve written in that letter, she’ll probably think you’re talking about school dinners!
It doesn’t matter - she will need to learn the implications of such actions. They can’t be taken lightly - I’ve worked identity issues and policy for the best part of five years…what this school is doing is apathetically symptomatic of the UK’s emerging surveillance culture. It’s wrong and needs to be stopped.
It’s a scary situation but I’m impressed with your response to the head teacher.
Hope you don’t mind me blogging this
http://www.pri.me.uk/2007/03/fingerprinting-5-yr-olds.html
and hope you can at the very least get the education authorities to consider their actions, the head’s response sounds very much like the sales pitch of the vendor - I’ve heard too many of these pitches in the past and they’re easy to fall for if you’re being sold a solution that they tell you is needed.
[…] This is a follow up post to the school fingerprinting issue I posted about yesterday. […]
Well done for standing up against this scandalous practice. I too fear we’re heading towards a Big Brother State. My children all attend Bradford schools and it’s a big worry for me.