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Fingerprinting in Schools 2004 - A new school registration system is being marketed that uses fingerprints. We have just started to receive complaints that the ‘Vericool’ system is being introduced in some schools without prior consultation with children and parents. There is more information about this on our ‘Child Panopticon’ page.
We continue to receive regular complaints from young people and parents about the use of thumbprints in school libraries and on November 23rd we sent this letter to the Information Commissioner. His reply will obviously be relevant to fingerprint school registration systems as well.
Previous History... On the 12th of July 2002 ARCH received a complaint from a worried parent whose son's school had installed thumb scanning technology in the school library as an alternative to cards. This system, called 'Identikit', is supplied by MicroLibrarian Systems (MLS) and is manufactured by an American company called Digital Persona. On finding that her son's thumbprint had been taken, without her knowledge or consent, the parent demanded that his data was removed from the school's library computer. ARCH has subsequently heard from several families who have had similar experiences. ARCH contacted the privacy watchdog Privacy International who immediately launched a campaign on this issue. Their press release can be seen
here. During the subsequent media coverage, too many people - including the system supplier - have implied that the concerns are trivial because it's only about "kids borrowing books from libraries". The fact that the technology is being put to a trivial use appears to be blinding them to the seriousness of the issues. Privacy International outlines some of the compelling civil liberty implications of thumbprinting children. There is still considerable debate around the use of biometric data where adults are concerned. That children's biometric data is considered less important is shocking, and betrays the attitude problem we have in the UK which leads to our being the children's rights backwater of Europe. A thumbprint is not a milk-tooth, shed on the transition to adulthood, it remains unchanged for life. However, serious though it is, this is not simply a matter of civil liberties. There is also a huge security problem which is being completely overlooked. The pressure is growing to use thumbprints as some kind of magic key. In the USA it is possible to pay for your shopping with a quick press of the thumb. Some think that this supposedly unique mark would guarantee the security of everything from passports to bank accounts. But a thing is only unique until it is copied. A university professor in Japan has demonstrated that it is possible to create a false thumbprint in gelatine which fooled sensors 80% of the time during tests. {http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0205.html#5} We are told that actual thumbprints are not stored on school library computers. They are reduced to a string of numbers, called an algorithm, which, we are assured, is "very difficult" to convert back to the original thumbprint. Difficult, but not impossible to someone with the skills and the incentive. What incentive? Consider the scale of fraud that could be perpetrated by anyone in possession of a mere 1500 thumbprints with matching details. The contents of one large school's library computer. To some, it would be worth playing a waiting game until the owner reached a useful age, whiling away the time by decoding algorithms and playing with gelatine. Advances in technology over the next few years may make the job a lot easier, in any case. Thumbscanning technology is still in its infancy. As for getting hold of the algorithms in the first place, you don't need to be a Pentagon-class hacker to obtain them: data is only as safe as the physical building that holds the computer. Schools aren't MOD installations - bluntly, people break into them. If your child's data is on the school library computer, and that computer has been tampered with - or removed - are you sure that the school will let you know what has happened? And will you feel completely confident beyond all doubt that your son or daughter's 'Unique Personal Identifier' is still unique? Any cavalier dismissal of the importance of such a vital piece of data as a thumbprint is unforgivable: the potential repercussions for our children in the future are frightening. WHAT YOU CAN DO
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