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| sue odell
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 Posted: Sat Nov 18 2006 07:20 PM - Post subject: Fingerprinting
Has anyone experience of children being fingerprinted, perhaps for purpose of using school library. Reports suggest this is quite widespread, and growing. I personally find this sinister and quite unacceptable.
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| Tony McGuire
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Posted: Sat Nov 18 2006 09:45 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
Unnecessary. Unacceptable. Unsafe.
Why can't the children have a small card with their photo and/or signature on it?
As we go further down this road we WILL have an incident of someone having their finger chopped off for fraudulent purposes.
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| duncan duncan
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Posted: Sun Nov 19 2006 01:38 PM - Reply subject: fingerprints
Tony,
Whilst I may question whether we will ever get to the situation of chopping of a finger, I do share your real concerns over the use of fingerprints. The potential for "official" misuse of such data is too great in my opinion to warrant its use in schools.
As a school we have swipe cards for use in the library etc and I do have a few concerns over exactly where their use could be extended to. Any suggestion of using figerprints I would oppose completely as a step to far.
It sends all the wrong signals to me that we do not trust our pupils and are using a "big stick" to impose on them instead of mutual trust.
Duncan
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| L J
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Posted: Mon Nov 20 2006 01:16 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprints
My school uses fingerprints for the library and I have said I was happy with this. I'm now concerned that I was mistaken.
"Unnecessary. Unacceptable. Unsafe." "Sinister and unacceptable"- Why? Surely it is more dangerous for a child's image to be stolen than their fingerprint.
What is the possible misuse of this data?
You could use swipe cards, but surely for Primary children as young as 4 it is less convenient than a fingerprint.
Why does using a fingerprint rather than a swipe card suggest that we do not trust our pupils?
I'm concerned now that I haven't thought this through properly so any advice would be welcome.
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| duncan duncan
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Posted: Mon Nov 20 2006 02:47 PM - Reply subject: fingerprint technology
LN,
There are two bits that worry me about fingerprint technology. The first is a general concern about the trust that we place in our children in school. To me the school library is a place to be used by pupils for getting books that they can read. I can understand the necessity to ensure that books are accounted for but to me the use of fingerprinting for this is a step to far.
To most children fingerprinting is about law and order and especially in secondary schools it therefore sets the wrong tone for getting a book out of the library.
The second issue follows on from the idea that fingerprinting is about law and order. If the equipment stores the fingerprint then it can then be used by either the school or the police when there has been a "crime" committed in school or around the school surrounds to identify the culprit. This is not about allowing a crime to go unpunished it is about the right to use such information.
It is no use suggesting that this won't happen because it will. I have just seen a draft agreement between the local police force and the local authority / schools that is going to allow the police far more access to schools if accepted. Once police are routinely in school it is only a matter of time before use is made of equipment like this fingerprint technology. I am not actually against having a greater police presence in schools but it has to be done on the basis of mutual trust and understanding. There have been a number of incidents reported in TES of heavy-handed police action in schools for things that normally never get farther than the school gate.
We have to build trust in our schools and we do not do this by using such technology that puts school staff on the same footing as the police in the eyes of the pupils in my opinion
Duncan
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| Arthur Towse
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Posted: Mon Nov 20 2006 04:23 PM - Reply subject: finger printing
Sue, I go along with duncan duncan's replies wholeheartedly. Has anyone at the school seriously considered the security and safety of such information?
Has someone been delegated with that responsibility?
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| sue odell
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Posted: Mon Nov 20 2006 09:19 PM - Reply subject: FINGERPRINTING
Thanks for your thoughts. The subject was raised at a recent FGB meeting for discussion (with mixed responses) Some could see nothing wrong with it, but no decision was made to adopt such a system in our school, at least for now.
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| L J
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Posted: Mon Nov 20 2006 10:55 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
Duncan, thank you for your detailed explanation (again!) but I'm going to agree with those who could see nothing wrong with it. Even if I had been told the fingerprints would be used in the case of a crime being committed I still would have agreed to it. My children have nothing to hide but if they do I want them found out!
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| Stephen Gough
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Posted: Mon Nov 27 2006 09:38 AM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting Children
This is my pet topic and little understood by many Governors or Teachers. The Problem is that is solves lots of problems in the school library, how many children forget their fingers everyday? The Issue is widespread and many Governors do not know that it occurs in their school and understand it less.
The issue with fingerprinting is simply, the use of data and how it could be used in the future. I have fallen out with my head teacher on more than one occaision simply on the issue of informing parents, I asked him simply to send a letter to all parants explaining the system, he refused. He relied on a simple statement from the salesperson that is was secure and it was with this statement that due diligence started and finished. I have at least forced him to provide an alternative system for parants who wish to opt out, to date only three children have ever opted out from the system and they are all mine.
One day we will all wish we had spent more time debating this, but by them it will be too late, identity cards for children!
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| Barnstoneworth United
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Posted: Fri Feb 23 2007 10:17 PM - Reply subject: New to visiting forum hence late response
I am a Police Fingerprint Expert for my paid employment.
In all my years experience I have never known one person to cut off anothers finger for any criminal impersonation as scaremongered by Mr McGuire, and these are criminals not children I am referring to, such comments are unnecessary and ridiculous - this is real life not the movies!
In gory practicality, A finger is a very small piece of meat, how long is it going to be fresh and usable for once removed from a blood supply?
The police have exceedingly stringent rules backed by very severe personal and departmental sanctions. It is simply not viable or worth the risk for us to misuse fingerprint images taken for a specified purpose (ie library access) for criminal searching, and in my experience it does not happen.
We receive many sets of fingerprints from the victims of crime, householders, car owners etc for Elimination purposes.
It would be entirely possible for us to put these through an unsolved marks database to see if these people have commited any crimes but this is strictly forbidden and DOES NOT HAPPEN, the prints were given as elimination prints for a specific crime and that is all they are used for.
The same would be true of library or wider school access via fingerprints, as long as it is specified on any consent forms that they are for a specific purpose only, then you are safe from whatever big brother invasive jackbooted police state nightmares that you may harbour.
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| Tony McGuire
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Posted: Sat Feb 24 2007 08:00 AM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
Richard
Have a look at the following page:
http://gigaom.com/2005/03/31/biometrics-the-machete-hack/
where it has already happened in Malaysia.
However, I am not suggesting that it has happened here (at all). I am suggesting that as we move fingerprints from being a crime detection/solving technology to being a getting-access-to-information/money/places technology we will see changes in criminals behaviour.
At present my bank account (lets pretend there is a million pounds in there) cannot be accessed by my fingerprint, but if it could the there would be an incentive for criminals to chop off my finger to get access. And don't think that a drug crazed junkie would be worried about the gory aspects or would be bothered that the finger would prove unusable after a short time. They would more likely chop it off first and try it themselves. If it didn't work, they would try it first.
WRT the misuse of such data by officialdom (a different problem), are you trying to tell me that the security services cannot get access to all the non-criminal fingerprints that are stored on the system? Because I just don't believe that, if you are. As a technology expert, I can tell you that it would be a relatively trivial task to automatically delete the records that were only collected for elimination purposes after, say, 3 months. So is that done? No. Why not? Because someone, somewhere thinks it would be useful to hang on to that information as it may prove useful in the future.
Its good to see that seeing-into-the-future is alive and well. You have no way of knowing what any future government (of this country or the U.S.A.) would do with the fingerprint records of schools all over the country. If there was another 9/11-style incident and a fingerprint was found that needed to be identified, then it would be entirely possible for a future government to tell all schools to handover their records. Schools would be in no position to refuse and, once handed over, would have totally lost control of what happened to those records.
You're entitled to have your own opinion, but outside your area of expertise (fingerprints and not technology or public policy) it is just that, opinion. And has equal weight with my opinion.
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| T. D.
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Posted: Sat Feb 24 2007 02:24 PM - Reply subject: Distrust by pupils
I have yet to encounter a child who is so eager to learn that they will chop off their friend's finger to be able to borrow an extra library book, so I can't see that the finger chopping problem will arise in schools.
Although I find some comfort in Richard's comments about the control of the use of fingerprints, I am not fully convinced. If some form of secret misuse of data was to take place then I have no doubt that as few people as possible would be told that it was to happen, or that it had happened. Richard may not be one of the people who would have to know about such misuse, so would continue to believe that everything was above board.
The problem of schools being forced to hand over records of fingerprints, or other biometric data, could be solved by insisting that the data is one-way encrypted before storage. This would mean that whereas one could find the matching record from some biometric data, it wouldn't be possible to reconstruct that biometric data from any given stored record. The data is then useless without the rest of the system.
Even with one-way encryption the system wouldn't be safe from misuse though. If a method other than finger scanning was used to enter a print into the system, scanning an enlarged picture of one for example, then prints from a possible crime scene could still be used to identify a matching record, and thus the pupil immediately becomes a suspect. I don't suppose that this would happen for every stolen bicycle, but it could happen.
None of these things are the real issue though. If a pupil is a criminal (local burglar? joyrider? rapist?) and the school introduces a fingerprint system to control access to resources, perhaps the library or ICT suite, then that pupil may well decline to access those resources because of mistrust in the system, whether well- or ill-founded. Such a disincentive to use learning resources cannot be good.
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| Clare B
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Posted: Sat Feb 24 2007 03:04 PM - Reply subject: Fingers and fingerprinting
"At present my bank account (lets pretend there is a million pounds in there) cannot be accessed by my fingerprint,"
Recently a 'pay by fingerprint' system has been (or is still being ) trialed in my region in some stores. I don't recall all the details from the news story last autumn but definitely using fingerprints in a major food retailer. Chip and thumb rather than chip and pin!
I am not as worried as some by biometrics but perhaps the difference in perceptions will be useful to ensure Big Brother is not a reality at some point i the future.
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| Some Pig Called Wilbur
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Posted: Mon Feb 26 2007 05:55 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
My school uses this system for the library. Parents were asked for consent and a few (as was their right withheld). No doubt these parents will also never travel to the USA with their children (or perhaps without) as you cannot get into the country without being fingerprinted. I can see concerns there but school library - no!
For me this is an issue where you either accept the technology or not. Biometrics is coming whether we like it or not.
Even in the unlikely event that the police got hold of the fingerprint data and used it to catch a criminal, I'm afraid I'm of the view "so what". I would, however, like to see safeguards to prevent another Shirley McVie case.
As for chopping off a finger to get at my bank account details - people are stabbed for less!
Let's keep a perspective.
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| Holly Craigs
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Posted: Tue Feb 27 2007 04:29 PM - Reply subject: fingerprints
We have just started the process of using the finger printing technique in our primary school library -those whose parents didn't wish them to do this were issued with a card instead but in the past the system of cards has been a real pain to use because they get lost, or they don't have them on the right day etc. As a parent I have no problem with this - I think we can get a bit overly sensitive to the idea of "Big brother" and the possibility of misuse etc but who is interested in stealing books from a school library? The data is encrypted so it is not possible to steal or misuse the child's fingerprint in any way.
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| Tony McGuire
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Posted: Tue Feb 27 2007 05:36 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
> The data is encrypted so it is not possible to steal or misuse the child's fingerprint in any way.
And you are a cryptography expert are you? Or perhaps the salesman told you that and you believe him? What else did he tell you that you also believe, because he was telling you porkies there?
There is no such thing as an unbreakable code. Every encryption ever made can be broken. The only question that needs answering is how long will it take?
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| Barnstoneworth United
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Posted: Wed Feb 28 2007 10:10 PM - Reply subject: Ned Ludd lives
There was once a school of thought that said people would suffocate if trains and cars moved at more than 4mph. hence the man with the red flag.
Fears of unknown technology are nothing new and generally unfounded in reality.
The Malaysian story is a new one to me, I've not heard of similar in Manchester, they usually wait till you've opened your car and drag you out of it. They don't get caught in posession of an offensive weapon that way, maybe machetes are more commonplace in Malaysia than in Britain.
The victim seems to be a very wealthy person with a very top marque car (mine opens with a key), maybe that made this savage act worth it whereas in the other 99.999% of crime it isn't.
The fact it's got international attention should say something.
I would also suggest that it isn't a drug crazed junkie that has done this, they would mug you for a tenner on the street, big money attracts smarter criminals. If you had a million in your bank, they'd keep you alive, compliant and in one piece to see what else you had.
I'm also not in the habit of discussing my finances with drug crazed junkies so even with fingerprint technology I think my pinkies would be safe.
Its safer to root through bins for identity theft, or as happened to me, open junk mail sent to a former address that guarantees you a credit card and sign the box that says yes. My name was used to steal the value of many mercedes without any threat of physical harm to me or the thief of me.
I'm surprised at the huge paranoia surrounding police science.
We are average men and women doing a job of work, not facist zealots ready to sacrifice principles, careers and time in prison to incriminate the odd complete stranger. If anything can hapen to you, it can hapen to me and my loved ones, why would I tolerate or be complicit with that?
TD suggests a culture of secrecy would arise over such tactics,
I'm sure it would, but all identifications have to be verified by 3 x fingerprint staff, logged copiously and transparently before being notified to police officers. they are then scrutinised by CPS lawyers (who only proceed with cases that they are confident of winning, they would have access to all documentation etc, to be satisfied that it was a legitimately garnered identification - made up, missing or erroneous details would be unacceptable and brought to light very quickly) and then by the defence solicitors who are looking for any loopholes or anomalies, such as fraudulent use of non criminal fingerprints for prejudicial purposes.
Such conspiracies as TD alludes to would be doomed to failure by the myriad of scrutiny and external accountability of our work - it could not proceed to court and convictions so whats the point, we've all got better and legitimate things to do with our time.
Why should I or my colleagues be any more inherently criminal in our job of work than TD, Mr McGuire or anyone else on here would be in theirs? I could take offence at the implication but would rather try and set peoples minds at rest.
As for non criminal prints on 'the system'. Nope, only legitimately obtained criminal prints and police officers prints are stored electronically in Manchester (after significant consultation with the Police federation, and their satisfaction as to the security from hackers etc of the database). Hacking: how many cables and lines go into an average office block? which one to hack into? what would a computer whiz do with a hacked cache of heavily encrypted wiggly lines anyway?
Elim prints etc are held in paper form with the specific case -under a reference number, not name or address.
Yes they are kept until the case is completed or disposed of, this is not as sinister as Mr Mcguire implies but is practicality, as we could identify someone to this crime at any time after the event - years down the line in some cases (new arrestee, better recidivist prints come in) and a defence appointed fingerprint expert or solicitor could demand to see all of the exhibits in the case. Were these elim prints not available, then the case would easily be lost on a technicality and a criminal escape the consequence of their actions.
As for the security services swooping to take our prints. Manchester has had a large proportion of the anti terror raids and arrests. The anti-terror people have their own staff on hand and legitimately take their own sets of prints under anti-terror laws, they do not need to march in and take non criminal sets from us - how would they be aware we had them in the first place? and if a terrorist was burgled how likely is it that they would give their prints voluntarily to the police? or consent to those of any school age children being taken?
The shop and print trial has been around for a couple of years, should we boycott Tesco and the like in case they have a fingerprint database that the government could steal? - I'm more concerned about the info that Tesco have on me through my clubcard, if that database was hacked, I'm a sitting duck for more identity fraud and my love of broad beans will be outed!
Not all change and progress is good but reason needs to prevail at some level.
Where does the Luddite attitude end?
The only 3rd party fingerprint scanning machine I've seen was in the Science Museum in London and it was frankly rubbish, if this idea were to be suggested for my school, I would have far more qualms about quality than anything else.
I hope that this helps to alleviate some fears that if agreeing to any form of biometric identification system you are turning your schools children over into an Orwellian Big Brother state machine.
Quiz the salesman, take advice from the Police, hit the internet, do your homework, test it to be sure it works accurately and you should be safe.
As in my previous post, ensure that the reason for taking the prints is explicit on the consent form and it will take something along the lines of a massive police conspiracy or a new act of parliament to allow anyone else access to them.
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| Tony McGuire
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Posted: Thu Mar 01 2007 07:30 AM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
I'm certainly not suggesting that Police Fingerprint Experts are a corrupt bunch. What I am suggesting is that once fingerprints are on a computer, it is much more difficult to stop them being "abused". And I think that said "abuse" is possible/likely to come from one of two sources.
* The government
* Criminals
If, in 10 years time, we have lots of children's fingerprints floating around on school library computers, it is not beyond the realms of possiblity that a future government might say "Hand them over" and schools would have no real option but to do so.
Risk Assessment: Moderate risk, high impact. Moderate to high exposure.
And if criminal minds got their hands on the same data, either thro' theft or thro' hacking (more likely theft), then they may be able to use the data for nefarious identity theft.
Risk Assessment: Moderate risk, v. high impact. Moderate to high exposure.
Having completed the risk assessment we now need to weigh that up against the benefits.
* Conditioning of children to accept biometric identification
* Slightly extended library opening hours
* Learning Resource Centre staff have more time to file their nails (as opposed to engaging with and helping students)
Any others?
To me, its a no brainer. Higher risk, no observable benefits, costs more. Why in heck would you choose to implement a fingerprint scanning system in such circumstances?
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| Some Pig Called Wilbur
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Posted: Thu Mar 01 2007 10:51 AM - Reply subject: Fingerprints
Risk assessment is a subjective thing as each person has their own view. Rather than avoiding risk (it's impossible to avoid all) your obligations are to identify it, manage it (which might include transfering it) and only finally avoid it.
Looking at Tony's risk assessment my approach would be:
"If, in 10 years time, we have lots of children's fingerprints floating around on school library computers, it is not beyond the realms of possiblity that a future government might say "Hand them over" and schools would have no real option but to do so.
Risk Assessment: Moderate risk, high impact. Moderate to high exposure."
Fundamentally I wouldn't agree with either moderate risk or high impact. I would certainly classify the risk that a future govenment would force schools to hand over fingerprints as minute. I don't either get the high impact assessment as exactly what is the govenment going to do with millions and millions of fingerprints of children who have grown up (can a fingerprint of a ten year old be used to convict a twenty year old)? In any event let's consider managing the risk. The fingerprints are linked to the children's names, this can be linked to their age and school year. So delete the data when the children have left school (which you have to do under the data protection act). OK someone may say that this can be recovered. Only until the physical sector of the hard-drive has been overwritten and even before that is the effort going to justify the benefit?
On the second point
"And if criminal minds got their hands on the same data, either thro' theft or thro' hacking (more likely theft), then they may be able to use the data for nefarious identity theft.
Risk Assessment: Moderate risk, v. high impact. Moderate to high exposure."
Again I don't agree with the risk assessment but let's manage the risk. Password protect the hard-drive to start with. Don't retain the data for longer than necessary. Keep the data on an external drive which you can put in a safe. There's a bunch of stuff that you can do if you think that a thief is going to nick a school computer for the data rather than to sell it on for cash.
In any event, what do you do about all the books and equipment in a school that children (and staff)touch. How are you going to stop that being siezed by the government so they can extract fingerprints? Do you wipe everything every day?
What about going to the doctor for say a blood test? Do you worry about retention of your DNA in some database that the government may force to be handed over or that thieves may steal it and leave it at a the scene of a crime so you get blamed not them?
How about the scores of CCTV cameras you pass every day? Bad people could nick the tapes and watch them to see who passes at what time and do they look rich enough to lie in wait to mug?
Personally I don't think the real world is like this but we can all have our views.
What we have to do as part of our GBs is to have the debate, consider the issues and come to a decision. Some will use the technology others won't. Neither is right or wrong. If anyone is "wrong" it's those whoc don't fully consider the issues.
By the way, I think Diana died as a result of a tragic car accident but I don't think David Kelly committed suicide.
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| Clare B
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Posted: Thu Mar 01 2007 11:18 AM - Reply subject: Big Brother
"By the way, I think Diana died as a result of a tragic car accident but I don't think David Kelly committed suicide."
And I might well think the opposite of course!
What I did find faintly concerning was using my debit card at Asda and finding the receipt then thanked for shopping me there by name.
It won't reasure all but I am with Richard on this!
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| T. D.
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Posted: Thu Mar 01 2007 12:14 PM - Reply subject: Deterrent from using resources
While I also largely agree with Richard, I have no doubt that misuse of data does occur, and that unaccountable decisions are taken from time to time by small groups of people (which is different from illegally gathering evidence to be presented in court). None of this is likely to affect a school library though.
The crucial question, IMHO, is 'will ANY pupils be deterred from using school resources if they have to give their fingerprints to access them?'. I have little doubt that in some schools some pupils will be deterred, and that is a bad thing.
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| wendyann k
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Posted: Thu Oct 11 2007 04:17 PM - Reply subject: choice
my son has just brought home a letter stating that his fingerprint will be taken to enable him to use the school library but that i could notify the school if i did not want this to take place which i thought was very fair i had a choice. it was only when i reached the end of the letter did they state that children who did not submit to the fingerprinting would not be allowed to use the library, so not much of a choice after all. i don't really object to the fingerprinting of one of my sons fingers but i do object to the lack of choice.
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| T. D.
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Posted: Thu Oct 11 2007 04:52 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
This week, at a school near me, the pupils were fingerprinted for the library. They were told that they didn't have to do it, and that was it. Not a single mention to parents at any stage, which is contrary to the Becta guidance.
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| J M Gov
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Posted: Thu Oct 11 2007 09:46 PM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
It seems to me that people have taken this topic to the extreme.
We are not discussing bank accounts, but the use of fingerprints to identify children within school. It is not a fair assumption that because we use fingerprints in a school library, that you will get your finger cut off!!
I personally believe that there is no reason why people should object to fingerprints being used in such a way, surely this will actually help to promote identity theft and make the next generation even more aware. Additionally as the school has to abide be DP laws, the data can only be kept whilst it is absolutely necessary. So once a student leaves the school, whilst their school record is kept the biometric data would be destroyed.
Surely using fingerprints not only in a school but in everyday lives would actually help combat fraud as chip and pin cards have done.
With regards to the bank account scenario given earlier, I am sure that you would tell someone your PIN number or online password if a knife was pointed at you.
I believe that the main problem with this is that people are afraid of the unknown, and technological advances are unknown. We should never rule anything out completely.
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| T. D.
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Posted: Fri Oct 12 2007 10:52 AM - Reply subject: Fingerprinting
J M Gov,
The safeguards in the guidance, such as schools destroying data when a pupil leaves, and only using the data for the purpose for which it is collected, are important safeguards. But these safeguards are useless when schools don't follow the guidance, and there is no external scrutiny to ensure that they do.
I am not convinced by the anti-fraud argument for fingerprinting in schools. I agree that fingers won't be chopped off to impersonate others when accessing a school library, but are school libraries really places which have been plagued by identity fraud? The school I mentioned in my previous post uses a smartcard system to identify pupils for school dinners, so why not use the same card for the library? The answer is quite simple - lazy management - it is easier to just buy in a couple of different systems for different purposes than it is to properly consider the issues and find a single solution which would be more widely accepted.
I don't believe that it is fear of the unknown. Most of the objections to fingerprinting in schools which I have come across are from people who do understand the issue, can see that there are dangers if no proper safeguards are in place, and can see that the safeguards are unmonitored promises.
I repeat what I see as being the main reason not to use fingerprinting in schools; there will be some pupils in some schools who are deterred from using the library, or from having dinner, or from accessing other resources such as an ICT suite, by the use of fingerprinting. Can that be justified?
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| Clare B
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Posted: Fri Oct 12 2007 11:29 AM - Reply subject: Use in schools
There are quite a few schools which use this in my LA - primary and secondary - and for libraries, registration and the canteen (including all three in some). Nor is it a recent development and it is well publicised with several having been on the local news when they introduced the changes. I have never heard of any pupil who is not accessing those facilities and many of the schools are oversubscribed.
So, whatever the arguments for and against (and the main anti-fingerprint 'movement' originated in this LA as well) it does not appear to be affecting pupils at all, certainly here. It may be though, as in discussions on uniform, some parents have deeply ingrained and polarised views and may never be reconciled with any biometric system.
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| Calum 98
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Posted: Mon Oct 22 2007 04:59 PM - Reply subject: Canteens and fingerprinting
My daughter's high school has used a fingerprint originated system for the canteen for the last year or so. When it was set up, the parents were advised that the fingerprints were not stored, but 12 points of information from the fingerprint would be stored and in future used to pay for all purchases from the canteen. This means that the child's actual fingerprint is not available to any system, school, police or otherwise. It has meant that children have no need to carry money and also that parents can enquire as to the purchasing and eating habits of their children. Lost or stolen dinner money is now a thing of the past. We can be too paranoid about Big Brother.
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