Fingerprint taken against wishes

[Clarabel22]

A few weeks ago the school sent out a permission slip for allowing them to take a thumb print from my son (age 6 Yr 2) for the purpose of borrowing a library book. I am aware that many people aren't bothered by this sort of thing creeping in to our schools but I am absolutely against it. Anyway, happy to let them get on with it, and just opt out, I correctly filled out the permission slip and returned it. I also, suspecting the school might be inconvenienced by our non-compliance, had a talk with my son and made him aware of what to say if the teachers asked for his print (i.e. mummy doesn't want me to have my thumbprint taken).

Tonight I found out that they did it anyway. He told them twice that I didn't want him to have it done and the TA said to him that it was ok because mummy had written a letter to say they could do it.

If anyone else finds themselves being asked to give permission for this, first read up about it on the internet so you are aware of all the arguments for and against. Secondly, if you don't want to do it, write a VERY CLEAR letter to the head or they may just go ahead and do it anyway, as they did in our case.

really??? are you sure? Only the tone of your reply makes me want to be snotty back!
Obviously it does not make you "the bad guy", but it stands to reason that if fingerprints match the ones found at this totally hypothetical scene of crime then the police at least have something to go on.

Nothing snotty about my post, was an entirely reasonable straightforward couple of lines attempting to answer your question.

Also ladymariner, because it could be used as a way to gather the nation's fingerprints aged 10 or whatever, in order to build up a mahoosive scary intrusive database. Which I'm instinctively agin.

In the instance of encrypted codes generated by fingerprints/any convenient scannable surface which a child can be relied to carry around, however, I think that is a very different thing. With instructive caveats from edam, but overall to be scrutinised rather than rejected out of hand (as it were! )

Raven, just don't tell the filth it was me what done over the Italian joint today, OK?

Did you see the NO2ID link about how easy it is to forge someone's fingerprint, btw? Scary stuff.

Abetadad- what if the fingerprint was found at the scene of a rape and following the sinario you gave us, the fingerprint was traced back to a 16 year old boy who was found to have have other forensic evidence to relate him to commiting the crime?

Unless you are planning on breaking the law I really dont see the problem. If the government really wants to get a DNA profile on us Im sure they will be a bit more inventive than a school library pass.

I don't like it either.

Put it this way (to those who can't see anything wrong with this)

If the software changed, and you COULD recreate a fingerprint from this library procedure, would it still be ok?

If the libraries were to require a full set of inked fingerprints from your DCs to take out a book, would you agree happily to that?

What about eye scanning, if they had that, instead of finger scanning? Would that be OK? After all, why is eye scanning any different to finger scanning?

Doesn't matter how you can't recreate a visual fingerprint yada yada; the fact is that each record stored is unique to your fingerprint, and requires your fingerprint specifically. It's the "new" "visual compare", as it were. We think it's more innocent because it's not taking a print with paper and ink the old fashioned way.

The information is still person-specific and to assume that there won't be a cross-referencing of this data with other data systems in the future is naive.

I haven't read all of the posts, but have read a few.
I think it was wrong of the TA to tell your son that you had given permission, I imagine that did confuse him.

But, maybe the TA didn't deliberately lie to him. Perhaps she saw the letter and assumed it was to give permission.

Do all of their request letters allow you to show you opt out of something? At my DCs school, if you return a letter, it is usually to give consent. If you don't agree, you don't return the letter.

The TA still should have checked, but it would be a better reson rather than she lied.

Ouchhh:

'If the software changed, and you COULD recreate a fingerprint from this library procedure, would it still be ok?'

No. That's why I've said it bears watching, but my layperson's understanding is that the process - so it's not to do with the software, as there's perfectly adequate software on my home PC to produce high res scans of the whole town's fingerprints -is that you can't reverse engineer from a 9 or 12 digit ID number to an image of someone's fingerprint.

'If the libraries were to require a full set of inked fingerprints from your DCs to take out a book, would you agree happily to that?'

No. Why would they want to, anyway, if a computer-generated number from one fingerprint is sufficient to identify a student in a high school population of 1000 or so?

'What about eye scanning, if they had that, instead of finger scanning? Would that be OK? After all, why is eye scanning any different to finger scanning?'

Well, if it's a means of generating a number, it isn't any different. Fingers are probably easier though.

Look, I agree it's something that needs monitoring.

But in practical terms, I teach in a school of 800, & I could put a name probably to 500 faces. So could the school librarian, but if our Head wasn't too tight to pay for this system, it might speed things up a bit for her...

It's a bit of a toy at present, & I think it's part of a much bigger potential picture. Hmm.

Still wouldn't go gunning for the TA personally, though. I'd be tackling the governors about whether a) they should be introducing such a system & b) how they think 'opt-outs' should be protected from internal cock ups as in the OP.

I still don't see a problem. Someone could steal your library card and leave it at the scene of the crime. Anyone complaining obviously hasn't had to hand out 30 library cars to infants on a regular basis-and expected them to hand them in again.

sorry cards not cars!!

ladymariner/teamcullen - this is the bit that frightens me.

As edam rightly points out I have left fingerprints all over the place this week and most likely at a few scenes of crime unbeknown to me.

"what if the fingerprint was found at the scene of a rape and following the sinario you gave us, the fingerprint was traced back to a 16 year old boy who was found to have have other forensic evidence to relate him to commiting the crime?"

How convenient it would be then to just pick up every young person that happened to have left a fingerprint at a crime scene by just scanning through a ready made school library database - whether innocent or not.

The more serious the crime the more public pressure there would be to 'catch' the perpertrator by any means possible. This has got potential miscarriage of justice written all over it and it is just a matter of time before this kind of library fingerprint database technology is used help make an arrest. There is increasing concern that fingerprint and DNA 'evidence' is routinely being misused and misunderstood in court principally because it is often presented as infallible and irefutable evidence when it is not. It is merely circumstantial evidence in many cases. It is impossibe for lay people on a jury who do not have the technical knowledge or even the information put in front of them to decipher what is reliable hard evidence or what is circumstantial evidence and what is not evidence at all. Just because a fingerprint or DNA is found at a crime scene and it can be matched to a database does not prove a person commited the crime but that is often how it is presented.

More to the point, even being arrested for a serious crime on the off chance of a fingerprint match being found on a database has very serious implications as it leads to fingerprints and DNA being taken at the police station and it never being removed form the persons record even if totally innocent. The police increasingly arrest all young people at crime scenes as a matter of routine (e.g like after fights outside pubs) and they all end up on the police database even when innocent. It could happen to all our children.

I am not into conspircy theory stuff but I just do not buy the 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear' arguement. Most serious civil liberties people don't either.

My DSs are never going on one of these library fingerprint systems. We told he school we would buy books for them from a list provided by the school if necessary and create our own library.

Anyone can have my fingerprint-I don't see it as an issue.

I agree piscesmoon- they can have mine and my kids too. I see it as moving with the times rather than thinking that the government is out to get me.

People thorght the same about using something called the internet 15 years ago.

I wonder if the peole who object to fingerprint technology dont go to their local town anymore because "big brother is watching"

DD had this system when she was at junior school. I don't remember having to give my permission.
She just came home and said they had all had it down.
It obviously doesn't work though. She has been left over a year and still has school library books in her room.
I don't have a problem with it, and don't see it as any sort of infringement.
When DS was at high school, a teen was stabbed and killed and the whole school had to have locker searches by the police. At first, I did think it a bit of an infringement to do it without the parents being there. But, I quickly realised that a child had been murdered. Infringement of human rights pales into insignificance when you put it into perspective.

I trust that those of you who want the school to adopt a labour intensive, time consuming method of running the library are going to volunteer to go into school and help?

Personally, I don't see the problem with fingerprint recognition like this. I would be happy to provide a fingerprint instead of using a library card.

WRT the OP, I do think the TA was wrong to lie (although I don't think she was lying, just misinformed) and they clearly handled the permission slips incorrectly which needs looking at.

Interestingly, I am certain DSs school used this for their library system, however, they now have a book which has a barcode next to their name and they scan this to take a book from the library. They would appear to have ditched the finger reader. Obviously the barcode system is not as "secure" but it's only a book, not a high value computer, they're borrowing

I can't believe there are people so dim and compliant that they think being "modern" is a good reason to give up personal data.

Read the things the experts in data collection and storage have to say about these schemes. Just because technology makes something possible does not mean it is a good idea or that we should just go along with it.

Fingerprinting a child against a parent's express wishes is a very serious matter. I would be gunning for a ta who would lie to a child like that to coerce them into obedience in that way. She should not be anywhere near a classroom if she treats children with so little respect. This is the problem with having unqualified people in the classroom.

The way it was done was entirely wrong skidoodle and there is no excuse for it. I just fail to see what is wrong with anyone having your finger print. If parents object they should set up a rota to run the library, and to replace lost, bent and chewed cards!

The issue is also ignoring a letter which withheld consent. I refused to let my ds (12 at the time) have the hep b jab last year as he has an underlying health issue and I couldn't get hold of the military docs to discuss how this would affect him if he had it. I went to his school medical with him to ensure that he was NOT given the jab, and the bloody doctor tried to persuade him to have it, even though I had signed to say no; and I was sitting there saying no. If I had not been there I think she would have talked him into it, which irritates the hell out of me, as I had very definitely said no.

There is no point sending out forms for consent if the school is going to ignore what is written on it.

Right, so I'm "dim" am I? Charming.

As for "gunning for the TA" I don't think she was lying. I bet she was told they had permission from the parents and this is the info she passed on to the child. The only person at fault is whoever misread the permission slip in the first place.

After being thanked for drawing teacher's attention to the fact that I had refused permission for dd to be seen for a medical by school nurse because "they didn't check the slips because parents don't often refuse"
I then had to withdraw dd from school health programme because school nurse then informed me she wouldn't be checking for permission either but if I wrote withdrawing dd then she wouldn't be seen.
Which makes you wonder why the school or school health bother asking for permission in the first place
Incidentally only refused permission because dd has a paediatrician so why would I need her to be seen by a school nurse?

I think that, when your DS said, quite emphatically by the sounds of it, that his mum had said that he wasn't to have it, the TA should have bloody well checked the forms. If he hadn't said anything, then it's more understandable (although not really excusable) that they could say they hadn't checked the forms properly (in which case what the hell was the point in having them?) but HE POINTED OUT THERE WAS A DISCREPANCY.
No excuses. The school (and specifically the TA) are out of order.

Dunno what I think about fingerprinting though.

This has reminded me of a letter we had sent home from school a few years ago. The school wanted permission to pass on data to the Connexions service about my 15 year old son.

I refused on the grounds that I didn't want them having this information as I was unsure what they were going to do with it.

I was also unsure exactly what information they were going to pass on, they didn't specify. From the sound of it, it could have been everything and anything the school have ever known about my son and his family. I'm not entirely sure I wanted this service to have access to that. They also didn't specify how long they would hold this data for and what they intended to do with it.

I am often interviewed on this topic on the news and so on.

You should be worried.

1. The main organisation flogging the biometric software to your schools is invariably Verisign, who were involved in security at Guantanemo Bay. They make extravagent claims to schools about its benefits, for which I have been unable to find any evidence whatsoever.

1. It is relatively straightforward to forge a fingerprint using gelatine, or to recreate it from the software.

1. The algorithm used is often insecurely stored.

You can change a password, but not your fingerprints. Do not trust organisations with your personal biometric data unless there is a very good reason that transcends library books and school dinners (or indeed speed and convenience of passage through an airport).

Skidoodle - whilst I agree that the TA was in the wrong & should have checked all the permission slips, I don't understand your comment 'This is the problem with having unqualified people in the classroom' - what do you mean by this, in our school all our TA's are qualified.