NO2ID

hi, i wasnt sure where to post this. basically, as of next school year(september) (prints will be taken this year) my school registration system will not be "atkins?" "here" "brown?" "here" but an electronic one where we scan our prints in every morning to register.
i am not happy at all about this, and was wondering if there was anything you knew that could help me avoid having to do this. apparently we have to sign a form before we do it. i could not sign, i am in sixth form and therefore voluntary education. is it feasible therefore than they cannot *make* me give my prints as i dont have to do what they say?

ask for more info if you want. im just hoping people can give me arguments etc for why i shouldnt give them my prints..or if there is an idea/option i can use that means they cannot take them

Tell them you refuse.

They can only have your fingerprints if you give them your fingerprints, unless of course they physically force you but this seems unlikely, thus far.

I know it is likely to be more complicated than I have suggested, but what I have said is still true.

Hi Woodlebert, welcome to the forum.

This was discussed here quite recently - check out

http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=7222

Your situation is somewhat different, as you say, you are there voluntarily. I think if you refuse, there will be nothing they could do to force you. However, you may find that they feel there is nothing wrong with being fingerprinted, and you will get the "what have you got to hide?" line being quoted.

There are quite a few good arguments against being scanned like this. One of the most important is in what format the registration data is kept and how secure it is, and more importantly who will have access to it (in particular will the company providing the equipment access it?).

It is quite interesting that you are here, and I think a lot of visitors to the forum would be interested to see what happens if you were to refuse. It may be worth just questioning the school in question as to whether or not they have a system in place for people who don't want to be printed, and see what they have to say. There would certainly be no harm in a polite request for more information.

Also hang around the forum for a few days. I'm currently on my way out so will think more about this and post again. We also have some excellent self-appointed experts here that may be able to give you better advice than I.

What do reckon guys?

If you hold out and tell them your reason for not wanting to be printed- as per the advice above, check out this forum and the main NO2ID site to back up your case- then they'll have to give in. You have the right to an education, which they can't refuse you over something that is not written into law.

I think. (Don't go getting into trouble at school on my advice, I did enough of that for myself when I was there! )

Check it out. I think I'm correct, in saying that your right to an education supercedes a procedure individual to the school. (Also, think about your right to be safe, your right to dignity etc... and see how they compare with the fingerprint scheme)

Shelly.

well, one of the things im not sure about with the "right to education" is that im in 6th form. therefore voluntary education. either a good or bad point. as they could say "ok, we cant make you do anything..register old school" or "well, get out if you dont like it, we're not keeping you here"

but i like it. im gonna try and see the head about it soon. ask about security etc

Ask who has access to the biometric data.
Where the database is held.
Will the data be deleted as soon as you leave the school.
Will you be able to view this data yourself.

Alternatively if you are doing chemistry try and recreate someone elses fingerprints using jelly bears http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bears_defeat_fingerprint_sensors/ and get an A for it.

That's excellent, demolishes the whole concept of using fingerprint biometrics for proving identity. How on earth can they proceed? (Cuz they're idiots, I know)

____________

New Labour = New Nazi

Thinking about this, there must be some system in place for people who don’t want to be scanned. This type of thing is being rolled-out across schools all over the country, and I can’t imagine for a minute that every single pupil and parent is going to go “oh, ok, that’s fine then”, or at least I hope not. What happens when a new pupil starts in the middle of the year, are they immediately fingerprinted before they do anything? I doubt it – there must be a temporary back-up of some kind.

Also have you spoken to the folks about this? Are they opposed, indifferent or do they agree with you? Although it shouldn’t be the case, teachers in general tend to sit up and pay a lot more attention when they have parents rather than pupils knocking on their doors. First step, get them on board, their help and support will give you a huge advantage.

How do your fellow pupils feel about it? If you haven’t, ask friends and see what they think. Be prepared to be met with apathy and disinterest, but don’t loose heart – this is perfectly normal. If you can find other pupils who feel the same way, even if it’s just one or two, once again you have support, and there is a lot to be said for strength in numbers.

I would also be tempted to write to the head rather than going to see him/her in person, at least initially. This gives you a way of putting your concerns in a logical fashion, and gives them points they have to respond to. Face to face it is easy sometime to loose track. It also makes your request for information more formal.

Initially I would start along the lines that you are concerned about the implications of being fingerprinted. Would it be possible for you to be told which company is providing the equipment so you can check them out? Will the company have access to the data? Can they remotely access it for maintenance? Is it just going to be used for registration? A lot of these systems are linked to library management systems, is it the same in this case? Will all members of staff have access to the system? Would people be able to check your borrowing history in the library for instance? As mentioned by guest, will the data be deleted when you leave? Is the system connected to the normal school computer network in any way, and does this have the potential to be linked with any of your other electronic school records (extremely important)? Would it be possible to be able to attend 6th form without being fingerprinted, as, while you have nothing to hide, you really would rather not have to. I'd also mention that you consider it be an invasion of your privacy, and potentially a breach of your human rights if compulsory fingerprinting is a condition of you enrolling.

Also, try (and this can be extremely hard, as many of us here have learnt ) to be extremely calm, rational and reasonable about the whole thing.

I'd expect there to be more posts here over the next few days about this, so you will probably get a lot more advice (probably more than you need!)

Also, as Shelly said above, don't do anything to get yourself in to trouble on our advice (although it has to be said I would have created havoc over this when I was a 6th former )

Go and speak directly to the headmaster about it. First though it would be a good idea to study the issues to do with ID cards so you come across as well informed. I suppose it depends on what your head is like but try and approach it in a civil way rather than being confrontational and by using strong well-reasoned arguments. I'd probably introduce it in a way such as asking him why he feels the need to do such a drastic thing, which traditionally has only been necessary for convicted criminals. Suggest that it is entirely inappropriate to treat innocent young people attending his school as criminals.

Just thinking about whether or not you have an argument over the right to an education, with you saying you're in 6th Form. I still think that you can use the angle, or at least try it, after all you're still a young person, which means that the school must aim toward the 5 ECM outcomes (being healthy, being safe, enjoying and achieving, making a positive contribution, acheiving economic well being).

I would say that if your argument that the school must provide you an education (and they did agree to give you an education in 6th form without a prerequisite that you agree to fingerprinting) doesn't work, hen say 'well I'm sure the local paper would be interested to hear that I'm being denied the opportunity to further my education because I believe I shouldn't be fingerprinted like a criminal....'

Maybe not? It's times like this I wish I was still in school then I could kick up a stink and be the onyl one to have to suffer the consequences!

Anyone reading this any clearer on the rights issue? I still think that it IS an issue in this, but we're talking way down the line.

Speaking calmy to your school and explaining your concerns (and not being fobbed off with the 'we're teachers, trust us' mentality) will proabably get the school to consider its policy on the scheme.

Not really a serious suggestion, more a cheeky one.

Demand that they give you their fingerprints for your own "personal safety database", available to all the students and their parents by which they can cofnirm the teacher's identities.

What with recent sex abuser scandals, students have more to fear from teachers than teachers have to fear from students, after all.

They should prove who they are, more than you should prove who you are.

The "personal safety database" for the students and parents will, of course, require their personal information as well as their fingerprints. Which will be made available to everyone at the school for confirmation of identity and for allowing students and parents to check into the teacher's backgrounds to ensure they are not sex abusers.

You also demand the right that all concerned students have the right to ask - at any time - for their teachers to give their fingerprint to confirm identity.

Every morning at registration, for example, so that you know that before you give your fingerprints to confirm who you are, they have first given their fingerprints to confirm who they are so that you can be assured of your "safety" in giving your biometrics to this individual.

To prevent abuse of the "safety database" by sex abusers trying to hide their past, teachers would have absolutely no right to access or alter the database in any way. Students and their parents would compile and maintain the database (within the regulations of the Data Protection Act).

Before proposing this, compile a dossier wholly stating your case and the rights and regulations in the adminstration of the "safety database". Present it to them with absolute seriousness: You are NOT kidding.

Refusal to comply with the "safety database" proposal would automatically mean that they are trying to hide that they are sex abusers. Obviously.

Guilty until proven innocent, right? If it applies to you then it applies to them.

If your identity could be fraudulent then so could theirs. If it applies to you then it applies to them.

Point out that non-compliance to the scheme - which is for student "safety" - will be made wholly clear to all parents and students, who may choose to leave the school en masse for its policy of harbouring and protecting sex abusers.

If they complain about their personal information being wholly acessible to every student and parent in the school then you know what to say "if you've nothing to hide, then you've nothing to fear".

Insinuate heavily that their refusal is probably because they are trying to hide that they are a convicted sex abuser and that, for "public safety", this potential danger should be publicsied to everyone: Students, parents, the local media, letters written to the LEA about refusal to comply with the "safety database", etc.

Propose it with deadly seriousness, fully researched and the "safety database" ready to go at a moment's notice. Make clear that non-compliance will effectively instantly end their career forever and empty out the school because no-one wants to be taught by teachers who are unwilling to prove they are not "sex abusers".

You get the picture, I'm sure.

They have a damn sight more to be frightened of than you have. Take advantage of it.


"We can do this the hard way or we can do this the easy way."

I think this is an excellent idea, but only if the students are the last to be registered. It should first start with all the teaching staff, then all the other staff (for example caretakers!)

If any school wishes to adopt a culture of fingerprinting and electronic record keeping, then before any student is fingerprinted every teacher and other member of staff should have their fingerprints taken and be able to produce a certificate, the details of which they must be prepared to have included on the database, showing that they have been cleared to work in close proximity with children and young persons.

And before any of this there should be a strictly defined protocol setting out the terms of reference for adoption of the culture, approved by the school's governors, after consultation with all interested parties and that would include parents.

Woodlebert, I would be inclined to ask if any form of Code Of Practise has been adopted at your school and ask to see it. If the school has 'nothing to hide' surely they would be prepared to show it to you. After all, why should you have to surrender your fingerprints to the school without any information as to why they decided to go down this route and having done so, the measures they have in place to 'protect' you?

Yes, well I suppose there are two ways of playing it. Either the legal 'what rights you have' way or to simply appeal to common sense. Sometimes I think that it is best not to play by their rules because you are inadvertently giving them validity, which can quite easily backfire on you.

Now the other way is to talk to as many people connected to the issue as possible and to target the ones with the largest influence as a priority. When I have a problem of this sort I tend to look at it as a system and I have quite a good understanding of systems as I program computers. The starting point is to first recognise that this scheme will only work with majority agreement. So the next step is to look at how to flip the state of the system to that of everyone agreeing it is a bad idea from its present state, which is likely to be everyone thinking it is inevitable.

I would speak to the headmaster first and do my utmost to persuade him that it is an unworkable and unethical idea that is not inevitable but the burden rests on his shoulders. This would be correct as it is always good to give the person responsible the opportunity to back out. Next I would speak to as many teachers as possible about it in the shortest amount of time. The reason for this is so their next staff meeting they will all get together thinking it is a bad idea. After that I would speak to as many people in the school as possible asking them to get their parents to write to the educational authority and headmaster objecting. Then I would watch as the whole scheme falls to pieces in front of my eyes with a big smile on my face.

Woodlebert, if you find yourself pretty much on your own and other students don't know why your making a big deal out it, firstly, just don't sign the letter - they are trying to get you to sign an agreement to allow them to register you in this way. Write a brief, polite letter to the head teacher explaining the registration procedure conflicts with your religious and/or philosophical convictions. They will not push the issue. They are bound to comply with the Human Rights Act the same as any other public body. If they do try and push the issue just cite the following:

Protocol No. 1 Article 2: Right to education. No person shall be denied the right to an education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and teaching, the state shall respect the right of the individual to such education and to teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.*

You don't have to explain to them what your religious/philosophical convictions are - that's private (Article 8: right to privacy).

*My emphasis.

My 11 year old sons finger prints were taken at school for a similar reason and I was never asked or told about it. Just found out by accident. It is disgraceful

Tell them you will not lett hem take your prints. If they then try remove you from the school, make a formal complaint, in a very public way is that will help.

do not let them bully you into it! Try get some others to do the same.

We've been working on this for a while now, without a great deal of success because the ICO has said it isn't a data protection problem. I think the only course left is for someone with sufficient funds to mount a legal challenge.

Since this article [http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/comment/story/0,,1742191,00.html] was published I gather the ICO has agreed to look again at the problem, so there may yet be some movement.

I do know that several young people/families have protested, and been issued with bar-code cards instead.[/url]

I suppose that if you look at this issue from a logical viewpoint, it makes far more sense to start with young people, at school or college, get their biometric details first. After all, what's the point of dragging in 60, 70, 80 year olds to be scanned when their life expectancy might only be a few years.? A young person, hopefully, should have a long lifetime ahead of them, and if you 'catch them whilst they're young, your task will be that much easier, and will eliminate a lot of unnessesary work, also, it won't overload the system, or need correcting too often.

Personally, I think that this is the way they will do it, as opposed to trying to scan everyone of every age group at once.

I have to say here, though, that if I was a parent, (thank God I'm not), then I would be totally opposed to anything that subjected my child to this sort of treatment, and I would fight it in every legal way possible.

Woodlebert, you have recieved plenty of good advice and help from other members here, now, it's up to you. Good luck, and please let us know how things go,

I think it is fantastic that at such a young age you are questioning the rational of something you are supposed to just accept. questioning authority when you feel uncomfortable protects us as a society as a whole and has prevented abuse from more powerful institutions. You should take all the great advice given here and feel proud you have the integrity to challenge something you feel instinctively is wrong. this is a quality most adults do not posess believe me! advice about intelligent protest with the support of parents, friends and the promised use of the media should all be taken on board but you might be suprised, just by asking about the compulsion over producing finge prints might be enough for a pushy school board to either admit you don't have to or relax this rule. resistence is unpleasant and most policies are proposed to test the water and see what can be got away with.

I would be AMAZED if they refused to grant you access to education if you refused to give finger prints infact members of staff will be secretly relieved and reassured that there is common sense and a liberal atitude amongst the younger generation. please keep us informed, as someone else wrote it would be great to be able to persue what you believe is right with only yourself to take the consequences.

I would have gone ballistic had anyone tried that with any of my children. An 8yo isn't old enough to be asked to make an infirmed decision on such a thing and so the parents should have been asked instead.

Cheers
Gary

My view is that all official and commercial requests for personal information about me has to be justified. I don't part with it unless the justification is forthcoming and is acceptable.

Four years ago I wanted to register at the Job Centre so they could find me some work (I'm retired). They gave me an application pack for Job Seeker's Allowance. It took me two hours on the phone to find out I wouldn't qualify for that benefit, but the pack wanted volumes of information about me and my partner's financial circumstances. I refused to answer the questions and was informed that I therefore couldn't sign on. Only when I told them I had a law degree, and that what they were doing was unlawful, did they find a single sheet application form, which required only my name, address and NI number.

A few months later, after a foreign holiday, I had to sign on again and was given the JSA application pack a second time. I went to see the Job Centre manager and told him that if that happened again, I would see that he was out of a job himself. It appears they routinely ask for the maximum amount of information about us.

No children should be fingerprinted unless there is evidence they have committed a crime, or to exclude them from an investigation. The fingerprints of children (and adults) taken by the police should be destroyed if no charge is brought or if the outcome of the matter is an acquittal.

The fact that now police routinely retain fingerprints and DNA of innocent people and children shows how far we have gone down the road to a fascist state under Tony Blair, and New Labour. I have utter contempt for him and his party.

___________

New Labour = New Nazi

I had to take my son to the local walk-in centre last night after he'd ahd a little fall and hurt his eye. They asked me what school he goes to, routinely, in along with the name, age, address stuff that the receptionist was putting onto the database as I told her. They asked about his religion and stuff.

When I asked why they would need all that I was told that if he'd been an adult he'd have been asked about his employment status and other social questions, and that she didn't really know where that information went but she thought it was 'like a survey to see who uses us'.

It was only when I asked if I HAD to give the information for him to receive treatment that she said 'no, it's entirely voluntary'. !!!! She was very nice about it but surely she should have to tell me FIRST that the information is voluntary......in order for it to be voluntary

Similarly, recently my partner was in hospital, and a nurse came to his bedside and asked him matter-of-factly to confirm his age, address, name, number of children, names and ages of children, any support he might have from friends and family if he needed it when he came out (his throat had swollen up, he wasn't losing a leg!).

He just answered. I asked why, because I'm a bit precious about my children's information, and the nurse just said it's a needs assessment.
But if the Children's Index was in place I guarantee that info would have gone on it, because if the hospital failed to report that their dad may be experiencing SLIGHT difficulty and something happened later down the line they'd be in trouble. They didn't get parental consent for the info, and they wouldn't have explained what it was for if I hadn't asked.

I think that practice in the public sector may already be starting to reflect the data systems the government wants to put in place. And if it does come online, then workers may see it as an extension of what they already do rather than interfering and eroding people's privacy.

If they ask questions that they have no right to know about to enter into some database that will keep the info for the next 500 years and be fully accessible by any dodgy labour donor then as we say in the computer world garbage in = garbage out. Just fill their databases with any old rubbish that you invent but make sure each DB has precisely the same info on it so the computers know via cross checking that is it accurate and reliable!