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LeaveThemKidsAlone.com ©
LTKA © against schools fingerprinting our children |
| Read what the BBC said about this issue Please tell a friend |
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LeaveThemKidsAlone.com ©
LTKA © against schools fingerprinting our children |
| Read what the BBC said about this issue Please tell a friend |
| How would you feel if the government suddenly passed a law that every adult had to be fingerprinted at their local police station? Yet schools have already fingerprinted more than two million children, some as young as three. And neither they, nor their parents, were ever asked for their consent. With govenrment spin doctors working overtime to portray this as a bit of harmless 'fun', many experts feel this is part of an enormous softening-up exercise targeting society's most impressionable, so they'll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control. "You'll be monitored for life. That's why the government is targeting students and young people, to get them on before they realise what's happening." Phil Booth, No2ID, March 7, The Guardian. As parents, we just want our kids to have the chance grow up free, as we did. Please help us to put a stop to this outrage by writing to your MP. Act now before it's too late. "A whole generation of children not involved with any criminal behaviour may be growing up thinking fingerprinting is just a 'normal' way of being identified, and innocuous phrases like school 'kiddy-printing' only further minimises what is going on. At worst children are being inducted into the world of the 'surveillance society' without really knowing what it means." Terry Thomas, Professor of Criminal Justice Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University. If you think we're over-reacting, watch The Last Enemy, available now on DVD, the BBC drama criticised by former Home Secretary David Blunkett for "giving away too many Government secrets"... What next? CCTV in school toilets? |
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schools promotes healthy eating or improves reading skills amongst children. I am concerned that these reasons are being given as a justification for fingerprinting children. There is absolutely no evidence for such claims." Dr Sandra Leaton Gray, Director of Studies, Sociology of Education, Homerton College, Cambridge
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| School Biometrics: The Legal Conundrum by Patricia Deubel, PhD The Journal, 10 April 2007 |
Fingerprinting is being introduced in thousands of UK schools as part of subsidised library, catering and/or registration packages they have purchased, strongly encouraged by central government. This is always without explicit parental consent, often even without parental knowledge. With some systems costing over £20,000 maybe schools should spend their budget on books? Where is the evidence that these systems help children to read? In the five years since kiddyprinting started, England has slumped from 3rd to 19th position in a major international league table for education. And why shouldn't schools ask for parents' and kids' express permission before going ahead? Of course the suppliers say their systems are secure, they're trying to make money off of them. Leave Them Kids Alone! | Fingerprint foreboding by James Carroll The Boston Globe, 09 April 2007 |
"How dare you assume or try to record an identifying mark of my child without any thought of asking my permission? Lack of consent isn't implied consent. I do not give consent. Period." Mary Heim, US parent given one day to opt out of school fingerprinting. (22-03-2007)
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US: Scan Plan Scrapped. In response to mounting evidence, ardent parental protest and buckets full of uncertainty, a school scrapped plans for biometric fingerprint scanning in lunch lines. "Ban the Scan" has finally materialized as school policy. 19-04-07 Gazette - read more | ||||||
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UK: School fingerprinters may be breaking the law. The Department for Children, Schools and Families said in a statement to the BBC Radio 4 Programme You and Yours that schools who refused school dinners to kids who won't scan their fingerprints might be in breach of the law. 04-10-07 The Register - read more | |||||||
"As far as we were concerned, it wasn't necessary for us to seek parental consent in this." Stephen Bowden, headmaster, Porth County Comprehensive, 11 September 2006
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| "Frankly, using fingerprints without parental consent is at the least insensitive, and at worst, quite possibly illegal - think of this - How would the school staff feel if the parents were to have the teacher's fingerprints and home addresses without permission?" Jon Crowcroft, Marconi Professor of Communications Systems, University of Cambridge, 04 Jul 2006 |
| L T K A | The widespread use of biometrics in schools - benefits vs risks read the full details here | |
| BENEFITS | RISKS | |
| MY CHILD |
(children have been eating healthily and reading for centuries, without the need for fingerprinting) |
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| OUR SCHOOL | ||
| THE MANUFACTURER | ||
| THE GOVERNMENT | ||
"People have to be stark, raving mad to use conventional biometrics to improve the efficiency of a children's lunch line." Kim Cameron, architect of identity and access in Microsoft's connected systems division, 05 April 2007
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 "As well as burglary, you still owe £2.50 for that Noddy book you borrowed twenty five years ago." cartoon © Colin Shelbourn 2006 |
"System doesn't store a fingerprint" The 'honest' truth, but not the whole truth? Biometrics: myths debunked. Schools that introduce fingerprinting usually try to reassure parents by repeating a series of misleading claims given to them by manufacturers, who have more than five years' experience in 'handling' parents. The facts are as follows... 28-03-07 LTKA exclusive- read more |
UK: Guantanamo firm enters British schools. A military company connected to the US interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay camp is behind a finger-printing system in UK schools. 21-07-06 Times Ed. Supplement | |
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UK: Is this the real reason why schools are so keen to fingerprint kids?
Millions of children aged 11 and over are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, also used to store the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers. 04-03-07 The Times - read more |
UK: Please urge your MP to sign EDM 686 (against school fingerprinting). "That this House is alarmed at the growing practice of schools collecting and storing the biometric details of children as young as three; notes that up to 3,500 schools use biometric software to record the data of approximately three quarters of a million children." (Contact your MP here) 19-01-07 UK Parliament - read more | ||
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UK: Dudley Council's disgraceful "Tips For Fingerprinting Children" 14-09-06 read more This appalling page was online from November 2001 until September 14th 2006 when all trace of it suddenly disappeared, less than 12 hours after we featured it. Now it's back, thanks to the official Internet Archive. | |||
"We are a testing ground for this new technology. It's like an ID card for kids..." Jim Kelly, Palm Beach County schools' police chief, speaking to the Sun-Sentinel, 07 July 2004
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"We were all so shocked when America started fingerprinting foreigners, yet all along we were fingerprinting kids." Gus Hosein, Privacy International, 12 January 2007
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UK: A Bradford school's outrageous response to parents' legitimate worries.
Every child in the school is fingerprinted the day after they receive a letter from a parent, who is a computer expert, expressing serious concerns. Parents vow to fight on. 28-03-07 Parent's blog - read more |
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UK: Security experts condemn school fingerprinting as risky and unnecessary. There is a critical risk of identity theft, claim a number of leading independent industry insiders. 01-04-07 LTKA exclusive - read more | |||||
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UK: School fingerprinting combats terrorism, claims head teacher. "The world has no answer to terrorism without using these things and I would see us as getting [pupils] ready for the world in which they will have to live." Chris Bridge, headmaster, Huntington Secondary, York 08-01-07 York Press - read more | |||||
| "At best, the technology is overkill and a waste of taxpayer money. At worst, it sets a dark precedent, conditioning students at a young age to embrace the idea of Big Brother-style biometric tracking. If ever there was a generation that would not oppose a government system for universal ID, it's this one." Chris Hoofnagle, associate director, Electronic Privacy Information Center, 09 September 2003 |
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UK: Row after kids fingerprinted. A row has blown up after it was revealed children as young as six have had their fingerprints taken - to borrow books from their school libraries. The move has sparked outrage among parents. One parent, whose daughter had her prints taken when she was just six-years-old, said: "I'm just not happy at all. These are children, not terrorists or criminals." 15-03-07 Sheffield Today - read more |
UK: Fingerprinting In Schools: Probe Call. At least 17 county schools are fingerprinting children as young as four-years-old. An urgent investigation has now been launched by Gloucestershire County Council. It is believed some of the schools have been operating the system for up to three years without the education authority's knowledge. 29-03-07 The Citizen - read more | |||||
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UK: A police fingerprint officer's view on fingerprinting children. "If you have not been asked explicitly for your signed consent to allow your child's prints to be taken, kick up a huge stink immediately. Even arrested persons are asked to sign consent to their prints being taken." 18-03-07 Pippa King - read more |
UK: Blair wants to monitor all children for signs of criminality. Tony Blair faced charges of taking a further step towards turning Britain into a "surveillance state" as he set out plans to monitor all children for signs of criminality, to allow police to collect more DNA samples and to expand the use of CCTV cameras. 30-03-07 Sanders Research - read more |
Big Brotherin schools? - Futurelab | ||||
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