State of Biometrics 2022 - a review of policy and practice in UK education

I co-authored a report with Jen Persson from DefendDigitalMe, 'The State of Biometrics 2022 - a review of policy and practice in UK education', which was published last week.  There is no collection, monitoring, record of biometric technology in schools held by any UK government department, regulator or commissioner so information in the report was obtained by Freedom of Information requests and research collated over the number of years I've been doing this blog.

There is definitely further research and questions to be answers and issues to be resolved following the publication.  

Biometric technology has crept from school services, canteen, library, etc, into the classroom - where 'sensors' (cameras) now scrape data from children into a group view for teachers and management to gauge real time interest in lessons, engagement, attentiveness and emotion.  This behavioural data capture is classed as biometric data under the Protection of Freedoms Act, Chapter 2 (28)(2).

From PRNewswire:

"ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, has partnered with the Smestow Academy in Wolverhampton, England, as the first school in the UK to deploy the AI-powered myViewBoard Sens analysis tool in the classroom. Through the real-time insights generated by the intelligent sensor, the school can ensure the classroom follows the wellness compliance, increase students' engagement, and facilitate a safe and active learning environment for the best possible learning outcome."

 

The Report in summary

The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 and weak enforcement of data protection law are failing to protect millions of children from the normalisation of routine use of biometric data for everyday canteen and library transactions, and increasingly intrusive bodily surveillance in the classroom. 

Pupils in the UK are effectively guinea pigs in the use of emerging technology for companies from around the world, including facial recognition technology that has already been banned from schools in other countries.

Some companies claim that their products can measure mood and attentiveness, or use artificial intelligence to manage behaviour-based classroom planning. Some companies even claim to be able to detect autism without any child development expertise.

How this normalisation and these emerging products may affect the full and free development of the child are yet to be seen.

The fast-growing uses of intrusive technology involving bodily data in educational settings worry child rights advocates and law makers alike. 

Lord Paul Scriven said, “As parents you should be very worried and angry that private companies are seeking to make a profit from your child’s face, fingers, eyes and other personal characteristics while trying to pretend that it is all to aid their educational attainment. Where do we draw the line?”

• Data from FOI requests to schools (all UK) Our findings from enquiries to 550 schools with over a quarter of a million pupils in total, suggests that around three quarters of secondary schools are using fingerprint technology or other biometrics, and where used, uptake is routinely 85%, or more where use is restricted to only certain year groups.

• Despite the law requiring consent some schools in England are discriminating against children in receipt of Free School Meals (FSM) by obliging them to use the fingerprint systems, and others make it obligatory for all pupils. (We are yet to quantify these issues and plan to continue further research.)

• Emerging technologies, school trials and scope creep including under COVID. Schools started using facial recognition more widely in 2020. At least one school got new facial recognition technology free, “as part of a trial”. Some schools combined entry access readers with thermal and facial detection. Some are trialling “experimental” products including attentiveness and mood detection that are unevidenced in their intended outcomes or in any unintentional effects on children’s behavioural and cognitive development in UK classrooms. Voice is rarely considered under school biometrics policies whereas fingerprint technology is now routine.

• Lack of regulatory enforcement. Six months after North Ayrshire schools in Scotland put their facial recognition rollout on pause, there has been no visible ICO regulatory enforcement action. We include a latest position statement in the report.

• Large multinational companies have bought out the originally small school biometrics suppliers and many significant UK school providers are owned in the US, Canada and Israel.

• Parents’ survey findings (2018) Survation polled 1,004 parents with children in state schools on behalf of defenddigitalme about their experience of technology in schools. Over a third of parents (38%) whose children were using biometrics in school, said they had not been offered any choice despite the law that requires parental consent, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, and over 50% of parents had not been informed how long their child’s  fingerprints or other biometric data is retained or when the data would be destroyed.

Professor Fraser Sampson, Commissioner for the Retention and Use of Biometric Material and Surveillance Camera Commissioner and author of the report foreword, suggests there is inadequate oversight of school procurement among wide ranging comments.  “Some – including, surprisingly, the Department for Education – appear to have taken the view that bare compliance with Chapter 2 of the Act is all that is required to ensure the lawful, ethical and accountable use of biometric surveillance in schools.” He asks five key questions of practice in schools: Who's benefiting? Who's watching? Whose company are you keeping? Where's the push? And, Why the rush?

There are no UK national requirements for any quality or health and safety standards of biometric or AI technology when used by state schools, and no oversight or record of what is used where.

Current legislation is ineffective in protecting children’s and students’ rights in educational settings from age 2-25 and change is needed now. defend digital me is calling for a ban on biometric systems in educational settings.

Authors: Pippa King and Jen Persson

Artwork: Hannah Mallory

Increase with online learning may need student's biometric data

With the increase of online learning the importance of verifying which student is sat in front of the screen, completing work, becomes a salient issue.  

Scotland have issued iPads to over 100,000 students and there is no authentic way of assuring who is doing the work on the iPad.  Whilst I am no fan of the use of biometrics with children this issue needs to be thought upon carefully as biometric tech could be considered to solve this conundrum.   

It will also be interesting to see attainment results with the use of iPads.  No doubt they will go up and this will be attributed to the success of 'educational iPad use' rather than kids finding ways to complete homework they find hard by getting others to do it.

Responses from councils in Scotland when asked under Freedom of Information about the how the authenticity of work, submitted via iPads, was checked were:

Teachers know the level to which their pupils are working and will discuss with their students if they have any doubt.

Teachers use their professional judgement to scrutinise all work undertaken by students, whether submitted electronically or on paper.

Pupils are encouraged to work collaboratively, learning from each other whilst understanding the consequences of plagiarism or submitting work which does not demonstrate their learning.  This is all part of pupils understanding their responsibility as a digital citizen.  We would also add that this is no different from other homework assignments.

The obvious glaring fact is that homework submitted on paper is far easier to spot authenticity rather than that of homework submitted electronically.  I, and everyone of my generation, knows how hard it was to offer in homework done by someone else in the good old days of pen and paper homework submission.

But electronic learning has been around for a fair few years and with the current global health situation the advent of online learning, electronic work submission and the increase of screen use for education is truly upon us and the digital age of education seems to be working.  

However, along with that, as one of the responses states above, pupils need to understand their responsibility as a "digital citizen" - fair enough.  But does the Ed Tech industry and the Department of Education understand their responsibility as digital caretakers of the next generations digitised data, collected through the ever increasing online learning epidemic?  I think a long hard stare at this is necessary.  

Over on Defenddigitalme's website there are numerous instances of digital deep dives into not just children's educational prowess but how and what they are using their computer for.  Flagged words, conversations had, search terms scrutinised, incorrect data logged against students, flawed analysis of work done - the latter being blindingly obvious with the inaccurate 'exam' results for student in July last year, affecting the university places and the potential career paths of thousands of students.

So whilst electronic learning will not take a step backwards, indeed it looks like increasing, there are many reasons why we must tread carefully into this new educational online world.  Responsibility must be had by both parents, being vigilant of what data educational apps siphon, and the learning community/industry driving this screen-learning environment forward.

Many studies, too numerous to list here but easily found online, are showing that too much screen time for young brains is not good. One Harvard paper states:

"Much of what happens on screen provides “impoverished” stimulation of the developing brain compared to reality"

And this from the USA National Institutes for Health:

"Early data from a landmark National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that began in 2018 indicates that children who spent more than two hours a day on screen-time activities scored lower on language and thinking tests, and some children with more than seven hours a day of screen time experienced thinning of the brain’s cortex, the area of the brain related to critical thinking and reasoning."

It is no wonder then that tech giant's children have very limited screen time and are sent to schools that do not use screens to educate with.

However, for the vast majority of children, screens will be used and with that will come the data mining that goes along with it.  And, I suspect, it will only be a matter of time before biometrics are used to verify who is at the device.

A desensitisation of the use of biometric data has happened over the past 2 decades with police forces (in the UK and abroad) widely using facial recognition, unwittingly on the population, without any parliamentary oversight, arguably tip toeing the line between whether the use is lawful or not.

However, in 2015 biometric facial scanning was introduced every 60 seconds to iPad learning in San Diego schools but a backlash on the grounds of privacy intrusion from parents scuppered the scheme.  Whether that backlash would happen again in this day and age remains to be seen.

Updates coming... new developments

Since I started this blog over 10 years ago the state of surveillance, monitoring and application of biometric technology used in schools on our children, the next generation, has increased beyond imagination.  Okay, there may be arguments that his 'improves' their education, enables better educational analysis, reduce admin time/costs, etc... but personally, I've not seen a dramatic increase in the next generations intellectual ability or schools being more affluent because of technology.  Certainly here in the UK we currently have a national funding crisis in education. 

Credit: https://www.pinterest.co.uk
/pin/68539225552401806/

It is a different education that is needed for today's kids.  Access to information is greater to an individual than ever before.  Knowing and retaining information in this age maybe is not a necessity as much as it was.  Moreover how to apply that knowledge in this ever changing society perhaps is a skill children should learn.  Discernment, where one's digital footprint is left and the data left again one's digital identity should also be considered.  How, who and what may be assumed by a children's online activities on the Internet - and within a school network - is a burgeoning area that needs urgent consideration, especially for those it could potentially affect in decades to come. 

With governments, private education tech companies and private companies running schools having access to individual educational data from the age of 2 years old (in the UK) to 19 and beyond gives an enormous potential for profiling.  I could write about this for an age, as these are all points that have been raised with the proliferation of technology in education for the past decade plus.

What to do?  I have been absent somewhat from blogging here as the transfer of biometric technology tested used on children in the UK has now widened into the rest of society.  My concern is when the state uses biometric technology without consent, much as schools did from 2001 - 2013 in the UK.  I set up a sister blog a couple of years ago to keep the two developments of biometric technology, schools / wider society, separate - see my State of Surveillance website.

However, there is now an issue of facial recognition creeping into US and Chinese schools for a variety of reasons.  Here in England and Wales (not Scotland or Northern Ireland) facial recognition is not viably an option for schools with under 18 year olds, as per the consent required under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.   The argument for the use of biometrics in schools - whether  fingerprint or facial recognition - is basically unproven, as other, less invasive, less 'valuable', means of identification will suffice.   This is an issue I intend to raise again here.

So, hopefully, (in a rather large nutshell) I've explained my absence and fully intend at least once a week to start again back here.   T'will be nice to get back to it!

Facial recognition scrapped in San Diago schools

Encinitas Union School District has scrapped iPad facial recognition replacing passwords.  A system that was thought to initially cost $63,000 spiraled to $189,000 purely for "eliminating a common complaint: having to remember too many passwords for various programs on the devices."

How utterly ridiculous!  If children cannot remember a few passwords to log into an iPad how on earth is a school to hope children will retain lesson content?

What is more worrying is that teachers also "dedicate a lot of time to logging in".  Apparently with this new facial recognition programme it is a “walk through one door and you’re into everything,”...erm, isn't that what an iPad password does anyway?


The whole sales pitch on this was completely flawed - in fact it was a load of rubbish and parents were not falling for it.  A solution to a problem that simply did not exist and parents rightly saw through this.


It's strange isn't it?  Outside school children are quite capable of remembering passwords for computers, tablets and mobile phones.  As a parent I can absolutely say that I have never heard another parent moan about their child's inability to remember a password or had any conversation with another parent about their child's passwords being stolen or compromised.  So it's very odd that when a child enters school this sudden amnesia becomes a problem that potentially costs the tax payer $189,000.  I would say that is unbelievable. 

If maybe, possibly, this peculiar amnesia is true, then surely $189,000 could be better spent to fund research into this strange phenomenon of kids forgetting passwords...  I don't think we'll see that happen because this sudden loss of memory in our children does not exist - and we parents know it.

A petition was set up by a parent that gained over 360 signatures and was successful in swaying opinion that biometric facial recognition is a completely unnecessary and inappropriate technology to use with children.

Findbiometrics say on the failed programme-

"At a time when biometric technology is increasingly finding applications in schools – from deployments as innocuous as cafeteria lunch administration to more serious security systems – the EUSD fiasco signals how precarious this area can be, given the privacy and security concerns that often seem to come up with public biometric deployments, and parents’ particularly strong interest in protecting their kids."   

-  No sh*t Sherlock.

Biometric facial recognition in education

Facial recognition is a biometric technology not much used in education.  If it is to be used it has been mooted that it will track children’s facial expressions to gauge response to lessons or on screen learning but it is now starting to creep into identifying and verification of students.

In the UK, facial recognition systems are not used in schools with the exception of one small instance of facial recognition being used in education in 2010 at the City of Ely Community College for registration purposes.  The college no longer uses the facial recognition system as it wasn’t suitable for the purpose intended; the scheme ran for around an academic year before being scrapped.

U-T San Diego file photo

Now the technology has matured over the past 5 years, facial recognition is coming back into education.  Encinitas Union School District, in California, students will log in to their iPads via facial recognition technology for a first-of-its-kind pilot project.  This involves the iPad scanning the child’s face every 60 seconds claiming to help kids log on to technology and for them not to forget their passwords.  If a child cannot be taught to remember their password then what hope is there for the schools to actually educate them!   This is not about remembering passwords or saving time logging on.  This is about constantly verifying the student so that the data controllers running the educational software can accurately gather data on that individual.  So here facial recognition is being used to identify and continuously verify.  Not without controversy though, parents are not happy with this constant biometric facial scanning for a number of reasons, invasion of privacy of minors and a that it a waste of money, with a petition set up against the facial recognition technology being used in this schools district.

From the San Diego Union Tribune:

“Encinitas Union launched its iPad program in 2012, equipping each third-through sixth-grade student with a device to use for school work and lessons. Since then, the district has put iPads into the hands of all of its 5,400 students, at a cost of $2.7 million.
“It’s creepy to take a photograph of a kid every 60 seconds,” said Gil Saidy, who has a third grade son at Flora Vista Elementary School. “I don’t trust them. I don’t want these roving cameras in my house.”

“It’s a momma-bear’s instinct to protect their child. I just don’t know who has access to the face scans,” said another parent, Darcy Brandon. “Where is the data being stored?”

The pilot program would start with 100 students and, if successful, the technology could ultimately be added to all district iPads. Parents must opt-in to have their child use biometrics.”

At the very least it is an opt-in scheme so hopefully most parents will have the common sense to say ‘no’ to this unnecessary use of facial recognition, desensitising our kids to constant monitoring.

Unlike fingerprint or palm scanning biometrics used in schools, facial recognition is a non-participatory biometric with the ubiquitous scanning happening without conscious involvement.  What else is the facial scanning revealing?   

Educational companies are lining up with emotional face biometrics coming into education gauging how a student is feeling, where their eyes are looking, how they are reacting.  An article from September 2013 reports that SensorStar Labs have a product that records “When the student is looking up at the teacher, the teacher score goes up.  If she looks down at the computer, the computer score goes up. So we’re tracking facial expressions.  If she makes a smile, it might be indicative that is enthusiastic about the topic.”

Facial recognition has also been introduced at St Mary's High School, St Louis, for 'safety' reasons only allowing in to school registered members on the database.  This is thought to be the first instance of facial recognition being used in this way in the States.  There is also a 'watch list' of peoples faces not allowed in the school that alerts law enforcement if those persons of interest try to enter.  Presumably opting out of this facial recognition system is not an option for pupils as it would deny them entry to education.

Facial recognition seems to be emerging as the new educational biometric.  Not for the student convenience or safety, more about verification of data capture... who is where, doing what and when. 

Children are the most data mined section of our society.  Biometric facial verification more accurately authenticates the data grab and profiling of our kids.