Biometrics L
ast month, Deputy PM Nick Clegg pledged the biggest political reforms since 1832. He said: “Britain must not be a country where our children grow up so used to their liberty being infringed that they accept it without question,”adding that there would be no ContactPoint children's database and that schools would not take children's fingerprints without their parent's consent. Education Today finds out whether the position is being made clear enough. While many schools are already using biometric technology for purposes of cashless catering, school library automation and automated attendance and registration, others have rejected the idea on principle. In 2008 the Information Commissioners Office explained why the introduction of this technology had sparked such controversy: “One objection to fingerprinting in schools is that it stigmatises those who have their fingerprints taken. It is felt to be indicative of mistrust and suspicion and is identified with being ‘treated like criminals’. The opposition is thus based on the other uses associated with the method, rather than the circumstances of the present use. Others are concerned that fingerprinting in schools will teach children that giving up important personal information, and particularly biometrics, to those in authority is perfectly routine and mundane. It has even been suggested that fingerprinting in schools is part of a concerted attempt to ‘soften up’ the younger generation for increased state privacy intrusion, including initiatives such as ID cards and DNA testing. Any use of biometric technologies outside law enforcement should be considered in the light of such negative responses. However, these concerns, while raising wider questions of public attitude and public policy, are not specifically data protection issues.”
Fast forward two years and in his speech on political reform, Clegg promised the “biggest shake-up of our democracy”in 178 years. This included the scrapping of ID cards and the National Identity Register, improved regulation of CCTV and restrictions on the storage of innocent people’s DNA. This goes some way to answering many of the ethical issues raised by the ICO, on behalf of those who have long perceived these systems to be in breach of civil liberties. According to Becta, however, (the closure of which has just been announced as part of the government’s wider package of public sector savings), manufacturers and suppliers of biometrics to schools state that their systems store numerical values derived from fingerprints, not actual images of fingerprints. “Each time the child’s fingerprint is subsequently re-read, a numerical value is again generated. This is compared with the set of stored values, uniquely identifying the child within the population of the school if a match is found,”it says. Becta outlines the benefits to the use of biometrics in schools, within three contexts in particular:
Cashless Catering: Pupils do not need to remember to bring anything with them to the canteen and there is nothing that can be lost; costs can be reduced as, for example, there is no requirement to replace lost or damaged smartcards; the risk of bullying and theft may be further reduced, as there is no opportunity for pupils to steal and use other pupil’s smartcards to pay for meals.
June 2010
School library automation: Pupils do not need to remember to bring anything with them to use the library and there is nothing that can be lost, stolen or exchanged; there is reduced opportunity for bullying and theft; pupils must be physically present to borrow items and cannot use another pupil’s identity to do so.
Automated attendance and registration: Pupils register via an automated mechanism at the school gate or entrance at the start and end of each day - such systems can save considerable staff time and effort in taking registers; they can help prevent unauthorised access to school premises; pupils’ attendance can also be recorded at each class, so that truancy on the premises is recorded and can be dealt with, including informing parents; the time spent while each pupil “keys in”for each class is minimal; attendance data can be used to help assess the impact of truancy on performance allowing any necessary steps to be implemented rapidly. Crucially, there is no opportunity for pupils to register absent pupils using their smartcards, as pupils must be physically present to register their attendance.
Meeting standards
We asked Marcus Long, Head of Brand Communications and PR at BSI Group what standards schools must adhere to when implementing this kind of technology. We also asked what ethical issues arose from its implementation and whether or not they were being adequately answered.
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“Biometrics can increase security since biometric
features are tightly coupled to the individual, but have raised public concern.”
Marcus commented: “Biometric recognition systems have been introduced into a number of schools in the UK. They are used for: payment for school lunches or purchases from vending machines, borrowing from libraries and access to buildings or computer systems. Biometric systems have been chosen to avoid problems experienced with earlier solutions based on magnetic cards; children lose or lend their cards or they can be bullied and their cards used by the bullies for the purchase of meals or snacks.
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“Biometrics can increase security since biometric features are tightly coupled to the individual, but have raised public concern. Some parents believe that before their children’s data is captured there should be full consultation and that parental authority should be required. “Schools like any other organisation have to adhere to the Data Protection Act for any information held about staff or pupils, including any biometric data. Becta has published guidance on the use of biometric recognition in schools. Similar guidance has also been published for consultation by the Support for Learning Division, Scottish Government. To date, guidance has been too generic to provide practical guidance to schools or related organisations such as day nurseries and there is a growing need for practical guidance on how to address their needs and fulfil their responsibilities.
“BSI is currently preparing a Code of Practice on the Use of Biometrics, PAS 92, available in October 2010, which offers guidance on the design of systems that use biometric technologies to capture, process and record biometric information. It sets out the societal, cultural and ethical issues related to the use of biometrics in security systems for identifying people and addresses societal concerns around the use of biometrics. It also provides recommendations and guidance to enable successful deployment and sets out a mechanism to enable an organisation, such as a school, to demonstrate that they have followed good practice.
Susan Hall, ICT partner at Cobbetts LLP gave us her view on the problems that schools face when implementing this technology: “Over the last few years, there has been a considerable increase in schools using biometric technology for reasons ranging from monitoring registration to cashless catering systems and library borrowing methods. While schools are turning to this technology as a way of reducing bureaucracy, it has raised a number of concerns from parents and student groups. Issues of consent, storage and use of the information, if not adhered to correctly, are very likely to put the school in breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA) which since April 2010, could result in a £1/2m fine.
“The use and storage of biometric data is a controversial subject, particularly in the case of schools, as it involves minors giving their consent to something of which they may not fully understand the consequences.
“To consent to giving biometric information without a legal guardian’s involvement, the child must be classed to have ‘Gillick competence’, that is, to be sufficiently mature to be able to understand what is being asked of them and its potential consequences in order to make an informed decision. This can obviously vary in age depending on the child’s development. A child under 13 will almost never be considered to be Gillick competent and therefore a parent must give consent on that child’s behalf. In the case of children aged over 13, many would be considered to be Gillick competent but many are not. There is no universal rule on the age at which a child achieves Gillick competence; it depends on the individual child.”
Since Clegg’s announcement, the question of ‘Gillick competence’has become largely redundant within this context, since parental consent is now legally required. However, other issues still remain. Susan explains: “A major concern for parents should be the storage of students’ data which should be kept in accordance with the highest security standards to ensure that it isn’t accidentally lost, hacked or destroyed. Compliance with this level of data storage would be of considerable expense to a school and, if appropriate security measures were not taken, would not only breach the DPA exposing the school to criminal penalties and actions for civil damages but would also risk the stored data being abused.
“It is also naive to think that data collected will be used for only one purpose. It is extremely likely that, once information such as fingerprints are on a database, the school will feel pressured by teachers and, potentially, the police to use the information for other purposes than initially intended.
“Any school wishing to implement such a method must be fully aware of the rules
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