By Mark Ballard for The
Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
Foremost in written parliamentary questions tabled by
Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs was the question of
fingerprint scanners being bought with e-Learning credits, which
are a mechanism used by the Department for Education and Skills
(DfES) to provide schools with direct funding to buy educational
software.
Sarah Teather, shadow education secretary and MP for Brent East,
asked the government whether it had given schools permission to use
e-Learning credits to buy biometric scanners that took children's
fingerprints.
"I believe that the collection of biometric data from young
pupils without parental consent is illegal and must cease," she
told The Register in a written statement.
"The DfES needs to consult with parents, pupils, and local
authorities. This can't be a decision made by ministers behind
closed doors."
Parents who have been campaigning against their children being
fingerprinted at school without their consent met yesterday with
Teather and Nick Gibb, the Conservative shadow minister for
schools.
A Conservative spokeswoman said Gibb was writing about his
concerns over school fingerprinting to schools Minister Jim
Knight.
Gibb asked the government if it knew how many schools were
collecting their pupils' fingerprints, whether fingerprint scanners
could be bought with e-Learning credits, and what advice the DfES
was giving schools about the security of data they kept about
children.
The DfES gave £330m straight to schools for spending on
e-Learning materials to April 2006, after which it dished out
another £125m to last until 2008.
Campaigners are concerned that thousands of schools have used
their money to buy fingerprint scanners to get kids' dabs at
registration, at the library counter, and at the canteen
checkout.
The Register could find only two known suppliers of
fingerprint systems on the list of those whose products are approved for
purchase with e-Learning credits.
Micro Librarian Systems (MLS) managing director Andrew O'Brien
said about 9,000 primary schools had bought its base system at an
average cost of £1,100.
Schools were authorised to buy MLS's system using e-Learning
credits, but the purchases where justified because the software
tied children's experience in the library into the ICT and literacy
curriculum, he said.
But the biometric module, which scanned children's fingerprints
before authorising their borrowing of library books and cost £260,
was an additional module that could not be bought with e-Learning
credits.
Moreover, O'Brien said: "We've always recommended with schools
the importance of a dialogue [with parents] before doing it."
The fingerprints were translated into codes that could not be
reversed back into prints and the data was stored using 128-bit
"military-level" encryption so the children's biometrics were
safe.
Softlink Europe operations director Paul Dhesi, the other
supplier of biometrics known by The Register to be
approved for deals involving schools' e-Learning credits, said its
fingerprint scanner was also optional.
Only its base software could be bought with e-Learning credits.
About 1,000 primary schools had bought the base system at a cost of
up to £1,500, while about 2,500 secondary schools had purchased at
a cost of up to £3,000.
About 500 to 600 schools had bought the biometric add-on, he
said, at a cost of £140. He said his firm also recommended that
headteachers consult with parents before installing fingerprint
scanners.
These reports from the suppliers, however, were misleading.
"There's an 80/20 rule," said David Hassell, executive director
of educational content at the British Educational Communications
and Technology Agency, which part-administers the e-Learning
programme for the DfES.
Non-educational and hardware components like fingerprint
scanners can be bought to one quarter the value of the main
curriculum software purchased with e-Learning credits, he said.
BECTA did random checks on purchases made with e-Learning
credits, said Hassell, but it did not have enough intelligence to
know which firms were selling biometric components. This would be
covered by the DfES.
He agreed that with over 1,000 suppliers and 17,000 products
approved for purchase with e-Learning credits, there were far too
many suppliers for him to know which were selling biometric
hardware as part of a software sale.
However, the DfES was responsible for checking schools
expenditure, he added.
Bootnote
Last week, the DfES said that stories claiming it was drawing up
guidance in the use of biometrics for schools were overcooked, and
that such guidance was perennially revised.
It said its admission that such guidance was being drawn up was
"not a u-turn".
However, in answer to other Parliamentary questions tabled by
Teather and Gibb, the DfES claimed last July that it didn't have
guidance on the the use of biometrics by schools.
In answer last September to an FOI request placed by the Liberal
Democrats, the DfES said: "DfES has issued no guidance to schools
on the collection and recording of pupils' biometric information
and has no plans to do so."
Last week's statement could not have been a u-turn because,
though the DfES did admit to drawing up guidance in the
context of fingerprint scanning, its guidance was merely
in relation to the Data Protection Act.
"We already provide specific guidance to schools on handling all
pupil information under the Data Protection Act," it said.
© The Register
2007
