to refuse to allow school to take DSs fingerprints for new fingerprint technology?

[ChaoticEvil]

DS1 & DS2 attend the same secondary school. Currently the school has a system of using key cards in order to get into the buildings and to buy lunch. They (I) pay an exorbitant fee when they lose the card, but they are easily replaced by filling in a form and the old cards blocked from being used. All fine.

The school wants to move to a fingerprint recognition system from September and plan to start taking all fingerprints over the last few weeks of this term. Apparently the actual fingerprint image won't be stored, but instead an algorithm based on unique points which have been taken from the image of the fingerprint.

I can't quite say why I am uncomfortable with this but I am.

AIBU to refuse to allow it? What would happen then?

Or assuming IABU can somehow help me allay my weird feeling about it!

I refused consent. They gave him a pin number instead.
That was after dc1 had easily accessed the school records system and written a report with suggestions for improving system and data security. They shut the system down to implement his suggestions. He was 13.

@MyOpinionIsValid I am mid 20s and none of the 3 secondary schools (all in different areas of the country) used biometrics.

OP, have you ever used the NHS, been to a GP?

They store patient information, often on such a rickety old system (windows XP) which is not even supported by Microsoft anymore, can be hacked easily and all the data is probably already in the hands of the Russians or the Chinese

Same with websites such as BA which store your data (incl. Passport number) which has recently been hacked.

If you ever use Google, Facebook etc it will have created a profile, which has already been sold to the highest bidder (corporations who want to sell you stuff)

For most of us, ALL data is public. Privacy is a thing of the past. In that context, a finger print is neither here nor there

I understand your concern

It's a valid one

But for all of us participating in modern life online, that ship has sailed.

How anyone could watch the Mad Cow Disease documentary last night and conclude the government or big business can be trusted with anything much less our data is beyond me. However, @SolitudeAtAltitude is right. Doesn't mean you have to go quietly into the night. But really it's not the 80s anymore.

My gym does this, great for me as I forget most things