Under the Protection of Freedom Act 2012 if schools want to use and process a child's biometric datathey must ask for consent from the pupils and parents. Schools must also offer an alternative option to access systems if consent is not given to process a student's biometrics - such as a pin number or swipe card.
Schools use a student's biometrics to access facilities such as canteen, library, registration, etc, and the biometric of choice seems to favour the fingerprint.
The Protection of Freedom Act 2012, Chapter 2, details how schools must seek consent to hold and process student's biometric data. However, this consent only applies to children in England and Wales and with Scottish authorities planning to roll out more biometric technology in schools to extend consent for Scottish students, around the use of their biometric data, is absolutely reasonable.
In order to move towards consent for children in Scotland (and Northern Ireland) Freedom of Information requests have been sent to every local authority in Scotland to determine how prevalent the technology is in schools, whether consent is sought, type of biometrics used and for what purpose. As it is school holidays, and given that the beginning of term is busy, we expect to this this information back by end October 2018 and then work to get this issue of consent raised in the Scottish Parliament.
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