British Children to be Subjected to Compulsary Fingerprinting under EU Rules Drawn Up in Secret!

[KoKo]

Last edited Sun Jan 12, 2014, 01:43 PM - Edit history (1)

(If this is going to be EU Policy--then how long before US and Canada move forward with this for our own school age children?)

ON EDIT: RT International feed from GB show investigation that some schools in GB already started to do this without parent's permission. The kids didn't know what it was all about when it was being done. Parents found out from kids afterwards.

ON EDIT: to Poster dipsydoodle for Current Links to News Reports about Parents Questioning this policy:

RT link here Jan. 11th 2014 : UK schools fingerprinted over 800K children, third without parental consent - watchdog http://rt.com/news/uk-school-children-fingerprinted-461/

Mail reported on it Jan. 2nd too : More than 1million children have fingerprints taken at school, often without their parents' knowledge http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532914/More-1million-children-fingerprints-taken-school-without-parents-knowledge.html

Press reported on it today - Jan.12th : Over 800K kids fingerprinted in UK schools http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/12/345095/over-800k-kids-fingerprinted-in-uk/


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http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/30/politics.humanrights

British children, possibly as young as six, will be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting under European Union rules being drawn up in secret. The prints will be stored on a database which could be shared with countries around the world.




A portable fingerprint scanner on display. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

The prospect has alarmed civil liberties groups who fear it represents a 'sea change' in the state's relationship with children and one that may lead to juveniles being erroneously accused of crimes. Under laws being drawn up behind closed doors by the European Commission's 'Article Six' committee, which is composed of representatives of the European Union's 25 member states, all children will have to attend a finger-printing centre to obtain an EU passport by June 2009 at the latest.

The use of fingerprints and other biometric data is designed to prevent passport fraud and allow European member states to meet US entry visa requirements, but the decision to fingerprint children has disturbed human rights groups.

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'This is a sea change,' said Ben Hayes, spokesman for Statewatch. 'We are going from fingerprinting criminals to universal fingerprinting without any real debate. In the long term everyone's fingerprints will be stored on a central database. You have to ask what will be the costs to a person's privacy.'

The UK, meanwhile, observes that it has collected the fingerprints of five-year-old asylum seekers with no 'significant problems'. Since February the Home Office has been fingerprinting children as young as five at asylum centres in Croydon and Liverpool. It took the decision amid concerns children were being registered by several families in order to claim more benefits.

MORE about this and even Sweden instituting this AT:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/30/politics.humanrights

[dipsydoodle]

1. Was anyone concerned about this back in 2006 when that was published ?

[KoKo]

7. LINKS to CURRENT:

http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

"Once a child has touched a scanner they will be at the mercy of the matching algorithm for the rest of their lives."
Brian Drury, IT Security consultant

(Photo link)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-B7iF3BvgXdY/UpyPe1oGc8I/AAAAAAAAAX4/kvs3Od98DZU/s1600/Fingerprint+IQ.jpg

The introduction of biometrics in society has rolled out more in 2013 than any other with smart phones using facial recognition and fingerprint biometrics for authentication, shops tracking consumers with facial recognition, police using CCTV and facial recognition, a US company using facial expressions of pupils to determine their reaction to lessons, the list could go on...

Notably in the UK now for every child's biometric, a school has to store a corresponding parental signature of consent. This is required in law which became enforceable on 1st September 2013 - the first country globally to have parental consent in legislation for educational establishments to store and process a child's biometrics.

UK Police can potentially access school databases (see Q50 & 51) but a recent Freedom of Information request, sent in May 2013 to every police force in the UK, could not ascertain whether or not police have ever actually accessed a school biometric database - more in the New Year on those Freedom of Information request results.

I guess we'll never know if government authorities do access our children's biometrics. Given the recent Snowdon revelations, why would we believe they would not access harvested biometric data from millions of children?

Maybe keeping our, and our children's, biometrics private, off institutional and corporate databases as much as we can, is prudent. These are interesting times we are living in, where the free flow of data is great. Information at the quickest touch of a button via the Internet. Information is a tool. Governments and institutions may be benign now (though some might debate that point) but this may not be so in the future and the highly personal level of information we willingly give now may come back to bite us in the future.
History, unfortunately, has a habit of repeating itself.


http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

What is hidden in our biometrics?
Monday, December 02, 2013 9:10 AM


Dermatoglyphics Multiple Intelligence Test, DMIT - a way to tell a person's intelligence by their fingerprints. Hogwash or truth? Can fingerprints really reveal our intellectual strengths and weakness?

Parents in India seem to think so with the article 'How brainy is baby? Parents find out' appearing in The Times of India. According to the article this emerging trend is appearing in Asia, US and Australia with over 2,000 tests a month being done. Children as young as 9 months old can take the test with the vast majority of clients being under 9 years old. This is what the article goes on to say:


"A DMIT report tells parents whether their child learns better by 'seeing, hearing or doing' (visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner), whether he has high or low inborn learning capacity (short-term memory ), how long it takes for his mind to process information and so on. This, coupled with the finding about his dominant type of intelligence (there are eight listed ones, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, naturalist, inter-personal and intrapersonal ) can help parents give their child a good "head start", say companies."

One company cites the need for DMIT in that "12,000+ students commit sucides in India every year due to exam related stress. Parental and peer pressure and prime causes for such high number of suicides" and that "DMIT can provide crucial inputs for students counseling and guidance" also stating "In recent years U.S., Japan and Taiwan have applied Dermatoglyphics to diagnose Down’s Syndrome, congenital disorders, genetic abnormalities, educational fields, human resources management, employee recruitment etc."

It is fair to say then, that our biometrics have the potential to give data about us that we cannot possibly imagine. When children are encouraged willynilly to give up their biometrics for everyday mundane activity in schools, this DMIT analysis does show there is further potential to glean information from our biometrics - maybe today's children offering up their biometric data in schools should be mindful of this. Yet more information about us, profiling, categorising with potential to judge.

Are we being informed of what it is that is being collated about us? Fingerprints for school meals? Most probably benign... let's hope so.
Florida introduces three bills for biometrics in schools

http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 8:43 AM

After the appalling iris scanning of 750 Florida school children in May 2013, without their parents knowledge, to get on a school bus Senator Dorothy Hukill introduced two bills to the Florida Senate, SB232 and SB188 dealing with biometrics in schools.

SB232 would simply prohibit schools from taking and processing students biometrics whilst SB188 would allow schools or school districts to set policies on how biometric technology could be used.

“And the parents have to opt in, give permission for the information to be taken from their child,” Hukill said of SB188.

“Who would even think a school would take this kind of information from children?” Hukill said. “We've had children get on buses and go through lunch lines for years without taking their biometric information. Why do we need to do this? And if we are going to do this then why not have a policy in effect?”


On 21st October 2013 Senator Jake Raburn introduced House Bill HB195 - 'Provides that students & parents have certain rights relating to submission of biometric information; requires school district that collects student biometric information to implement policies governing collection & use of information; requires security of information & notification if security is breached; provides penalties' - which is a near replica of SB188.

It will be interesting to see the bills journey through the senate. Here is a brief explanation of the difference between Senate Bills and House Bills.
Biometrics not so flavoursome for school catering
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http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Thursday, October 03, 2013 8:31 AM
Over on What Do They Know, a UK website for Freedom of Information requests (FOIR), there have been some requests made to schools about biometric systems used.

Some interesting figures are emerging. For example, Falmouth School in Cornwall has a biometric system for school meals, the take up after asking for parental consent is 34%. Only 355 children are using the biometrics system out of a school role of 1044.

The school recently put a plea out to parents to use the biometric system: "Please could I ask as many students as possible to register to pay using the biometric system."

[dipsydoodle]

10. Might've helped since you mentioned RT if you'd given the link.

because then I'd have understood it remained a current issue.

RT link here Jan. 11th 2014 : UK schools fingerprinted over 800K children, third without parental consent - watchdog http://rt.com/news/uk-school-children-fingerprinted-461/

Mail reported on it Jan. 2nd too : More than 1million children have fingerprints taken at school, often without their parents' knowledge http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532914/More-1million-children-fingerprints-taken-school-without-parents-knowledge.html

Press reported on it today - Jan.12th : Over 800K kids fingerprinted in UK schools http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/12/345095/over-800k-kids-fingerprinted-in-uk/

The vast majority of my friends are UK as am I. Most have got children and some grandchildren too. I can honestly say that none have ever mentioned the subject.

I only relate to fingerprinting from having mine taken on entering the US : http://www.immihelp.com/visas/usvisit.html

[KoKo]

11. Thanks for those Extra Links to the Media sources

when I first posted I had just heard the RT report and searched to find a link. The RT report wasn't online yet. Unfortunately the Guardian report was from 2006...and I couldn't get back to add other links until later in the day... So, the article from Guardian was confusing being that it was from 2006 and I probably shouldn't have lead the article with it but used it as background.

Do you think friends and family are aware that the information is being stored with Private Contractors and may or may not be destroyed when students graduate? Some of the lastest news is that the information isn't under the schools control...it's held by Private Outside Contractors and parents find out are upset. What sounds innocent and helpful at first...could morph into something much more of an invasion of privacy later and be misused by Outside Companies as some of the links I posted reveal.

Thanks for the RT/PressTV Links:

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. It didn't become compulsory, for adults or children, to give fingerprints for a passport

However, by 2010, the EU was ironically asking the UK to justify the large number of schools using a fingerprint system for identification:

Europe tells Britain to justify itself over fingerprinting children in schools

The European Commission has demanded Britain justifies the widespread and routine fingerprinting of children in schools because of "significant concerns" that the policy breaks EU privacy laws.

The commissioner is also concerned that parents are not allowed legal redress after one man was told he could not challenge the compulsory fingerprinting, without his permission, of his daughter for a "unique pupil number".

In many schools, when using the canteen or library, children, as young as four, place their thumbs on a scanner and lunch money is deducted from their account or they are registered as borrowing a book.

Research carried out by Dr Emmeline Taylor, at Salford University, found earlier this year that 3,500 schools in the UK – one in seven – are using fingerprint technology.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8202076/Europe-tells-Britain-to-justify-itself-over-fingerprinting-children-in-schools.html

Incoming people with visas for the UK do have to give fingerprints, however, over the age of 6: http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/customs-travel/Enteringtheuk/fingerprint-checks-at-border/

And the EU, apart from Britain and Ireland, does now include fingerprints on its own passports:

The European Union's highest court rejected on Thursday a German man's challenge to the inclusion of his fingerprints in his passport, saying such data helped to prevent identity fraud and to curb illegal immigration.

EU rules requiring newly issued biometric passports to include fingerprints came into effect in 2004, though a full rollout has taken many years. They apply to all EU member states except Britain and Ireland.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/17/uk-eu-fingerprints-idUKBRE99G0FX20131017

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/06/biometrics-national-id-passports-false-sense-security

[KoKo]

8. Good Stuff and Links...Thanks..well worth the read. It's here in US in some places

an other countries..much more is coming... And from what I've read in lastest from GB...apparently "Private Contractors" are in control of the DATA on the kids...and NOT the Schools who were supposed to be just using algorythms...but that the data goes to THIRD PARTIES.

A Catholic School in Britain just had a big to do...from Parents finding out they were sending their kids data to the "Private Contractors."

I've been in and out today and lost the link to the Catholic post...but, think it's in the links I posted below.

Would we here in USA or UKA or EUROZONE want "Booze-Allan" and other Private Contractors have that kind of access our Childrens Data where we had no control. Parents thought it was just innocent about using thumbprints so underprivileged kids could get free lunches and not be discrimitated against (so all school lunch program kids had to give thumbprints.) Then Parents thought it a good thing that their kids could check out library books on "tumprint" recognition so that "lost library cards" were a thing of the past.

Yet there are other ways for both Lunch Programs and Library Access to work with "Pin Numbers" (kids could remember) and a "universal plastic card" which kids might need to learn to monitor as a life lesson in not losing but would keep their info private to school and not "Private Outsiders."

I have no idea if these alternatives could work...but, even though my child is grown, I would never have wanted her to give away her private info that way...and certainly NOT to have the School TAKE it without my permission.

[WinkyDink]

3. Just skip to the RFID chips and get on with the NWO!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/rfid-chips

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/08/student-rfid-chip-flap/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/08/13/want-an-rfid-chip-implanted-into-your-hand-heres-what-the-diy-surgery-looks-like-video/

[KoKo]

4. Kick...There's More Current from GB..Seems info is out there

Where Private Contractors have Control of the Info that's given in School Data. Parents have to file FOIA to get who owns their children's data. It's being passed on to the Private Contractors to Data Base/Catalogue and Store for "future reference."

Parents thought the Schools would just use if for Library Cards and Food in Cafeteria...but, finding out that "Private Contractors" have the data locked up in Their Space...which is out of control of either Parents or Students.

[KoKo]

5. BIOMETRICS in SCHOOLS...GB!

Biometrics in schools
Covering privacy and civil liberties issues with the use of biometrics in schools
The bigger picture on how many children are 'experiencing' biometrics in schools 2013
Wednesday, January 08, 2014 9:10 AM
Good that Big Brother Watch's 'Biometrics in Schools' report highlighted schools in the UK taking children's biometrics, though unfortunate that their figures are somewhat diluted as they are based on an alarmingly low response rate to their Freedom of Information Requests (FOIR)

.http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Having a 39% response rate, 1255 replies from FOIRs sent to 3,218 schools, is worrying as:
A) accurate data cannot be gleaned from it and
B) as schools are increasingly corporatised, does this suggest they see themselves as unaccountable?

But let's face it, if you were a school receiving a FOIR from Big Brother Watch about if/how your school uses children's biometrics you would be inclined not to answer, as legally every answer given under FOIR is "to the world", i.e. public. Potentially embarrassing.

So if 39% of schools are using children's biometrics, as Big Brother Watch's FOIR response suggests, then when applied to the wider school population of 8.2 million, in England, this means that 3,280,000 children have their biometrics on school databases. Interesting. A figure not reported in the media.

So does this mean we can apply the same criteria to the 61% of schools that declined to answer Big Brother Watch's FOIR? In which case we would be looking at over 6.5 million children using their biometrics England's school population of 8.2 million. A significantly larger figure than is being quoted in the media.

However, the demographic trend is that biometric systems are mostly used in secondary schools. 'Fingerprinting' primary age school children is not quite yet seen as acceptable, having had bad press in the past decade. Whereas biometric systems in secondary schools are easier to stomach as children of secondary school age could use the technology routinely on their phone, PS and Xbox, etc.

As there are 8.2 million children in England's schools, with schools having children (from Reception, age 4/5, to Year 11, age 15/16) for 12 years, there are approximately 680,000 children per year group. Perhaps more importantly, there is a need to look at the percentage of children having experienced biometric systems before they left school, i.e. looking at the secondary schools population where biometric technology is predominantly concentrated. There is potentially a very high level of children passing through this age group experiencing using their biometrics in a school environment, normalising biometric use for fairly mundane transactions

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Though still, the sheer numbers of children that have their biometric data on systems in schools, that possibly may be compromised in the future, is still a very valid point.

Thank you Big Brother Watch for highlighting the issue, as it is always good to have this topic in the news, but perhaps in the future more targeted research should be undertaken.



http://pippaking.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

[KoKo]

6. UK's "Big Brother Watch" posted this Investigation of Biometric Date on School Children.

"More Than 1 Million Pupils Fingerprinted at School"

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2014/01/one-million-pupils-fingerprinted-school.html


As the new school term gets underway, now is the time for parents to check if their children are among the hundreds of thousands of pupils who are using biometric technology.

Today we have published our latest report looking at the use of biometric technology in secondary schools and academies which, based on data from the 2012-13 academic year, makes clear that fingerprints were taken from more than one million pupils.

You can read the report here:

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2014/01/one-million-pupils-fingerprinted-school.html

Our research, gathered from Freedom of Information Requests to more than 3,000 schools, shows that at the start of the academic year 2012-13:

An estimated 40% of schools in England are using biometric technology
An estimated 31% of schools did not consult parents before enrolling children into a biometric system prior to the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 becoming law

Based on these figures, we estimate potentially as many as 1.28 million pupils have been fingerprinted at school, many without parental permission first being granted.

Going to school should not mean kids are taught they have no privacy, especially at a time when we are sharing more data about ourselves than ever before. Fingerprinting them and tracking what they do might save some admin work but the risk is pupils think it is normal to be tracked like this all the time. Schools need to be transparent about what data is being collected and how it is used.

WATCH DOG REPORT HERE:

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2014/01/one-million-pupils-fingerprinted-school.html

[jsr]

9. What the hell is the matter with the UK? Why are Brits such masochistic sheep?

[KoKo]

12. Kick for the Updates...