Pupils ‘frogmarched’ to be fingerprinted so they could eat in school canteen

School apologises after pupils were ‘frogmarched’ to be fingerprinted so they could eat in canteen

LAURA CLARK
Daily Mail
March 30, 2010

A school has provoked uproar after taking children’s fingerprints without permission from their parents.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Pupils were ‘frogmarched’ to be fingerprinted so they could use touch screens in the canteen to have money deducted from their account, thereby speeding up lunch queues.

Capital City Academy in Brent, north London, was later forced to apologise and wiped all prints it obtained before asking for consent.

As many as 3,500 schools take biometric data from pupils to speed up basic administration such as buying canteen lunches or borrowing library books.

Teachers fear the failure to secure consent is widespread because there is no requirement in law to gain active permission, and consulting parents at all is simply seen as ‘good practice’.

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This article was posted: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 2:03 pm

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