Monday, February 18, 2008

Arizona Senate bill bans biometrics in schools

Arizona, USA, have a bill SB1216 banning biometrics in schools, details below and here is the 'fact sheet' of the bill.

It heartening that people are taking on board the issues that arise with the, increasingly obvious, inappropriate use of biometric technology with children in schools.

When it was reported that Espiritu community schools in Phoenix, USA, fingerprinted children, without informing parents, in mid January 2008 it taken a little over a month for this bill to happen.

I hope this speedy action shames our Labour UK Members of Parliament to act as the elected people of Arizona have, i.e. working the people that elected them - although I'm not holding my breath.

Well done to mum, Shirley Wallace, Arizona State Sen. Karen Johnson and State Rep. Andy Biggs, the others that supported this bill and Fred Bellemy, a Phoenix attorney who specializes in Technology Law for their efforts to bring this bill about in such a short amount of time.

REFERENCE TITLE: schools; biometric information; prohibition

State of Arizona Senate, Forty-eighth Legislature, Second Regular Session 2008

SB 1216

Introduced by
Senators Johnson, Blendu: Gray C, Harper; Representative Pearce

AN ACT

amending Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, by adding section 15-107; relating to school pupils.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:
Section 1. Title 15, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding section 15-107, to read:


START_STATUTE 15-107. Biometric information; prohibition; definition

A. School districts and charter schools shall not collect biometric information from pupils.

B. For the purposes of this section, "biometric information" means any information that is collected through an identification process for individual persons based on unique behavioral or physiological characteristics, including fingerprints, hand geometry, voice recognition, facial recognition, iris scans or retinal scans. END_STATUTE

3 comments:

Bev said...

This is excellent News :-)

Congratulations to Shirley Wallace, Arizona State Sen. Karen Johnson and State Rep. Andy Biggs, Fred Bellemy and other people who supported this bill.

I would like to see a similar headline in the UK mainstream press
anytime soon.
"Britain Bans biometrics in schools"

Anonymous said...

So would I, I can not believe how many MPs & county councillors are simply not interested and say it does not affect their area, HOW CAN It, if the parents are simply leaft in the dark,

Come on Media especially local papers who also seem to be ignoring this issue..let the public know that why we are paying your wages to keep us informed!

Anonymous said...

what a show up
I have personally told all the MP's and Councillors in our area
and guess what 'they are not interested'Why Not?