Schools asking for consent to process children's biometrics

I am getting a lot of emails from concerned parents of children leaving primary school to go to secondary school with the way that the secondary schools are asking for consent to use their child's biometrics - fingerprint, fingertip data - and not offering an alternative method to access the catering, library, registration, etc, system.  In this parents are feeling that their request for consent is coerced.

Schools MUST offer an alternative to biometrics.  The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Chapter 2, Section 27 (7) states that: 

The relevant authority must ensure that reasonable alternative means are available by which the child may do, or be subject to, anything which the child would have been able to do, or be subject to, had the child’s biometric information been processed.

Unfortunately some parents have been made to feel from schools that they are being unreasonable in not giving consent and that they are they only one objecting to biometric consent.  You are not a 'problem parent'.  You and your child have a right to not give the school biometric data - data that is absolutely unique, personal, highly precious and that needs to be secure for the child's life time.

Parents feeling isolated by a school is a story I have heard over the past 10 years so many times from so many parents - you are not alone at all.  I myself last year, when my child entered sixth form, was told by the Principal that I was the only parent objecting to them using my child's biometrics - I was not.

Quite often the supplier of the biometric system to the school will also offer alternative means of accessing the system they provide.  Examples are swipe card, PIN number and taking the names of the children at the point of sale at the till, so it shouldn't be an inconvenience for the school to offer alternative means of identification.

The new EU General Data Protection Regulations is law for every member state of the EU, including us.  It came into law 27th April 2016.  Schools are subject to this.

Point 32 states:

Consent should be given by a clear affirmative act establishing a freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her, such as by a written statement, including by electronic means, or an oral statement.

Point 42 states:

Consent should not be regarded as freely given if the data subject has no genuine or free choice or is unable to refuse or withdraw consent without detriment.

If anyone has any concerns or questions please don't hesitate to get in touch, I'm really happy to help if I can.

Defiant 13 year old - "stand up for what they believe in, even if it means standing alone"

Melody, 13, protesting the
 United Kingdom's policy of
 obtaining biometric data
 from minors at school.
Photo: Kirstie

After reading about a 13 year old's plucky stance objecting to her school using a biometric fingerprint system last week, by wearing an Anonymous Mask, it gave me some hope that having a choice in this matter is filtering through to children.  Children that do not want to be part of a biometric system ultimately have the last say on this - if they do not want to participate their decision overrides consent given by their parents (though in this case the parent did not consent).

The school involved in this, should have made clear to the students that they have a choice in this.  The Department of Education's template letter for schools to send to parents states:

'Even if you have consented, your child can object or refuse at any time to their biometric information being taken/used. [His/her] objection does not need to be in writing. We would appreciate it if you could discuss this with your child and explain to them that they can object to this if they wish.'

Not knowing the name of the school Melody attends, the student who objected, I am not able to ask the school or check their website, to see if they made this fact known to students or their parents.  Maybe they didn't judging by Melody's comments to the Digital Journal. 

"Many didn't want their fingerprints taken, but on the day when the fingerprinting was to take place, there was only me and a friend. And she has now had her fingerprints taken."

The next statement made by Melody is quite concerning:

"The dinner lady got my finger and tried to move it onto the scanner even while I was wearing my mask, I had already explained I'm not doing it and didn't have my mum's consent [to be fingerprinted]. I just pulled my hand away and refused again."

Really?  Isn't that assault, an adult trying to move a child's finger onto a scanner when they have already expressed their legal right to refuse?  This is highly irregular and indicates the staff have no idea of the child's rights in law as contained in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, Chapter 2, 26 (5) which reads:

But if, at any time, the child— 

(a) refuses to participate in, or continue to participate in, anything that involves the processing of the child’s biometric information, or 

(b) otherwise objects to the processing of that information,  

the relevant authority must ensure that the information is not processed, irrespective of any consent given by a parent of the child under subsection 

Good for Melody that she held out from this intimidation.  She knows her rights and that of her parents and is exercising them.  If only more children had this conviction maybe biometric technology would not be viable in schools.  As it seems that schools are not telling students they have this right, then in a compliant environment which school is, students are going to feel compelled to conform and give up their biometric identifier if they do not know they have the right to say 'no'.  As Melody's Mum stated in the Digital Journal's article, "You can either be part of the solution or remain part of the problem".   Parents can be "part of the solution" and not consent to this and so can the students - if they are given that choice by the knowledge they too can refuse.

Let's hope the message Melody sends out by her opting out inspires other children to do the same.

When Melody was asked what do you think will happen next and a message to give, she replied:

"In all honesty, I don't know. But I hope my actions have encouraged my generation to stand up for what they believe in, even if it means standing alone... We shouldn't be scared of giving our opinion or not following the rules."

Words of wisdom and strength of heart coming from a 13 year old.  We should take stock of what this teenager is saying here.  There is incidious surveillance creeping into schools which is slowly desensitising the next generation into a Big Brother state, so it is heartening to see that Melody has refused to use by wearing an Anonymous mask conveying her opinion on "taking children's privacy away." 

13 year old exercises her legal right not to be fingerprinted

I will write more on this later but really heartening to see this plucky teenager exercising her legal right to refuse to use this surveillance technology.  Inspirational!

Well done Melody! :-)

13-year-old defies ‘big brother’ and refuses to be fingerprinted
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/13-year-old-defies-big-brother-and-refuses-to-be-fingerprinted/article/370009

"They can even confiscate my mask, but they can't confiscate the idea. I'm allowed to make my own decisions and have my own opinions."

Ousedale Secondary School, Newport Pagnell, is planning to use biometric fingerprints from it's pupils to access to canteen. The MKNews reports that the school "has received a string of angry, anonymous letters of complaint about the scheme"

One 15-year-old pupil who contacted the paper by email said: "The Government is so insistent on snooping on us all to a point where they are fingerprinting us to buy our lunches. They are treating us like criminals."

Leeds pupils speak out

Over on Taz's blog the ongoing annoyance and concerns of pupils and parents at Morley High School, run by Education Leeds, continues, with much debate...

"i am a student at morley high school and now see why no letters were sent out, the ironic thing about this system is that in our school it dosent even work as expected because if multiple students use there fingerprints at the same time the orders get mixed up and so many people have to pay for things they havent even purchased ...and the head teacher is reported to be one of the best in the local area" mmm.... in some peoples views maybe not so "best"

Such systems can cost up to £25,000. When biometric systems do not educationally benefit children (depending from who's point of view), just think how better this 25K and the annual running costs of the system could be better spent on our children's education.

Leeds pupils bullied to give up their prints

A parent from Leeds forwarded both myself and Leave Them Kids Alone details of how their 11 year old son's new school dealt with her concerns over a biometric lunch system, installed over the summer break.

The vendors of the lunch system treated the children without respect, the schools evaded questions, she got told by the bio-company "It is the law, it was passed in parliament in June this year. If you don't believe me, I can prove it" (what?!) and some courageous pupils refused on human rights grounds - good for them!

The email in full is on the LTKA [link temporarily removed] site, but here are some parts of the email that, quite frankly, makes my blood boil in the way the children were treated - but yet an admirable response in their stanse:

(parent) ...I had a telephone conversation with a very bright young girl who also attends this school. She refused to have her fingerprints taken, as did her friend. (Their human rights decision - she said) They have also heard of a few others who have refused too. They didn't agree with the way that the system had been sneaked into school and with no parental consent form. They were very scared, yet refused to cooperate. They were then threatened with the isolation unit, no school trips and wouldn't be allowed to enter into the school without the prints.

But.... my point is, they still refused! The girl said that many of her friends were very scared, they didn't like it and didn't want to have it done, yet they were still bullied into it (........ including her younger brother)

She said that they rounded up the kids like sheep for the slaughter, doing all the youngest first. The teenagers who are in their final year of school are going to be fingerprinted tomorrow. (14/09/2007) She also mentioned that apart from the science teachers, all the other teachers were completely in the dark about what was going on.

Courageous kids eh? bless em :-)

And this cashless system is supposed to 'prevent 'bullying eh?... the schools implementation of this scheme, in itself, raises some very serious questions!

Superglueing fingers

A friend sent me this from Klei's site.

Retina scanning for class registration?

Possible scanning of children's retinas could take place for school registration at Big Wood School in Nottingham. The school has yet to decide on eye scanning or fingerprinting...

"The idea is being considered for the school's new £18m building, part of the Government's Building Schools for the Future programme." (Just as I blogged about here)

Graham Chapman, Nottingham City Council portfolio holder for education, said retina scans would be good providing they improve efficiency - and if information is not passed on to third parties."The thing to worry about is confidentiality," he added. "That's essential."

Worry indeed. With no record being kept of where these children's biometric databases are, who has access to them, how data is deleted and no reporting systems set up for compromised/stolen data confidentiality absolutely cannot be assured by anyone.

It is thought the retina scanning at Big Wood would be the first in the county - Paul Easton, spokesman for UK Biometrics, which produces fingerprinting systems, described the technology involved as 'really high-end stuff' mainly used by the Government and military'.

Actually it is not the first school to try retinal scanners. The Venerable Bede Church of England School in Ryhope binned their retinal scanner when instead of the promised 12 pupils per minute, the system managed to process a mere five.

These are children's attitudes to the fingerprint library system in a neighbouring school:

"It has a futuristic thing to it. It's cool. We don't have to bring in library cards."

"No one can steal your print but people can steal your ID card,"

"It's exciting. I like taking books out - but I'm not even that bothered about reading ."

Just what message is the next generation getting from this technology when we we naively impose it on them.

Why have we got fingerprint scanners in school libraries?

Just saw this child's view on fingerprint technology here in York, where the issue over biometrics in schools rumbles on:

Those who are worried about the system simply don't understand how it works. It is used for taking out books and nothing else. "And I'm quite happy with that."

No, no, no - it's not just used for taking books out. It's primarily there to monitor what you read by your age, gender and what ethic origin you are. The library systems can restrict learning resources to these groups too.

These features are adverstised by the school library retailers - the real reasons why schools are buying into fingerprinting...

The inspectors were very impressed by the way in which we are able to provide detailed statistics and monitor use of the library by gender, year group, ethnicity and individual progress in numbers of books borrowed. This is due to the excellent reports developed...

How nice (not)- a prime example of un-informed decisions taken by children who do not know the full facts.

"...as long as you have got nothing to hide, you should have nothing to worry about" - actually it's because you have nothing to hide you should be worried about it. Value liberty.

Children's attitudes to fingerprinting in schools

Some research has been done, as part of a larger ICT project, on childrens perceptions of biometrics in schools.

The Trustguide, a collaborative research project between BT Group Chief Technology Office Research and Venturing and HP Labs, is part funded by the DTI Sciencewise programme.
The research seeks to build on the previous government sponsored Foresight project concerned with where responsibilities lie in making our future ICT-enabled world safer.

On page 77 of the Trustguide, published in October this year, it states:

In addition, in some of the groups we discovered that their school used fingerprinting to take books out of the library. Once again, there seemed to be little consideration for the potential infringement to privacy or civil rights this posed:

“Yeah, it's ok because you want a book.”

“Yeah, because the police could actually get your fingerprint up if they really needed it.”

“It's acceptable because the police can find you if you did something wrong, and there's fingerprints there, you can actually find out who's fingerprint it was, because it might be on the system.”

“It's only on the school records, so, it's only in school.”

“I think it would help in at least trying to identify criminals, or something. If you had all schoolchildren's fingerprints already on record. ”

We asked children how long the school kept their fingerprint records and found that most had not even considered this question and showed little concern:

“I think they keep them for a certain amount of time, a couple of years or something, but I've no idea. I think it's wiped off.”

We considered why this apathy existed. It seemed that none of the attendees were thinking beyond the immediate scenario or what they had been told from ‘trusted’ sources (i.e. their parents, their teachers, or the community policeman). They felt that they could not challenge this viewpoint, or present any alternative views. While beyond the scope of the Trustguide project, this does pose some interesting theories regarding the ‘tipping point’ where children move from being passive learners to actively challenging authority. We saw no evidence of this within our discussions so must conclude it comes, if at all, in later teenaged years.

I think the last paragraph sums up why some parents and civil rights groups are alarmed by biometric technology in schools. Children do learn from trusted sources and don't always challenge why they are being asked to do something.

Adult opinion of the use of biometrics for surveillance are under "Use of biometric data" (page29). It states that:

There were high levels of scepticism and negativity around the use of biometrics and some biometric data was seen as far more controversial than other forms. (page31)

Our discussion around biometric data resulted in some fairly heated debate about why it is necessary to be identified with increasing levels of accuracy, by whom, and indeed, the need to be identified at all, in an increasing array of diverse situations. Much of the discussion focused on the opinion, held by many, that they can already identify themselves via a variety of means. (page32)

Many adults are wary of the use of biometrics for themselves, as the report states. So why is it acceptable for our children in schools to use the technology when we, adults, are skeptical of it?