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LONDON - Schools are to get the go-ahead to fingerprint pupils as young as five in new measures to be approved by the British Government.
Ministers will issue guidance telling schools they have the right to collect biometric data and install fingerprint scanners.
But the decision has angered Opposition MPs who say collecting fingerprints from children will be a gift to identity thieves.
The guidance will say that personal data, including fingerprints and eyeball scans, can be collected from pupils and used to monitor attendance, so long as schools consult parents first and do not share the data with outside bodies.
Schools will be able to place fingerprint scanners at the entrances to classrooms, the school gates and even in cafeterias.
Fingerprint and eyeball scans would make it easy for schools to track children during the day and tell if they are playing truant or even what they have eaten for lunch.
MPs fear that school computers are not secure enough to hold biometric data safely and will be unable to erase the information from systems when students have left school.
Civil liberties campaigners accused the Government of wanting to barcode children and questioned whether the data would be kept from other government agencies and the police.
Nearly 900,000 children aged 10 to 17 have their genetic information stored on the police's national DNA database. The guidance, to be approved by ministers this week, will say that schools can benefit from using biometrics at entry points to schools and classrooms as well as to take out library books.
About 200 schools are thought to use fingerprint scans already but most have been waiting for the go-ahead.
- INDEPENDENT
