NO2ID

From the newsletter of Birkdale High School. On the surface innocuous enough, but on reflection, why details for the police and surely its for the parents to do not a school. They don't encourage their use so why have the details. What it means is every pupils phone and data is noted, good for investigating crime - or snooping on who's doing what. The cost of tracing mobiles is very high so why would they do it.

They write:
Our policy on mobile telephones is very clear. We allow boys to bring them to school but totally forbid use in lessons or in the building. We also state clearly that we cannot take responsibility for such expensive items in such a busy environment. If you would like to make your son’s mobile phone more secure, we ask that he be allowed to fill in a sheet with contact details and mobile numbers for the police. The details should allow them to trace and perhaps recover lost or stolen items. The volunteering of this information is not compulsory but your son will be asked to write down his name, his date of birth, his address, the make and model of the phone, the serial number and the IMEI number (find by pressing *#06#). I hope most parents will see this as a sensible precaution. On Friday morning at registration your son will be asked to supply this detail. - ]How voluntary is that.

If they

then they can have no reason to ask for the information.

If they have no responsibility then the responsibility lies elsewhere the information belongs there.

If the phone was lost then the school could do nothing about it as they are not the account holder.

As a school governor I would be worried about retaining this information given the implications of loss or inappropriate access and use. Imagine if someone got hold of the information that would give them access to all of mobile numbers for the children in a school.

Like the bureaucrats, you are insufficiently imaginative in your paranoia. Once one starts thinking like that, the possibilities for virtual 'danger' are endless. It would also allow them to identify those who do not have mobile phones and therefore are harder to track. (More probably to the delight and benefit of the children getting some autonomy thereby.)