Schools using pupils' fingerprints

But now fears have been raised over the civil liberties of thousands of children whose fingerprints are being stored on school computer files, the Daily Echo can reveal.

Several Hampshire and Southampton schools have taken prints of youngsters to help speed up and improve school dinner and library services.

Concerned parents and human rights campaigners say they are worried about potential identity fraud and the loss of personal privacy, but head teachers insist the system is more secure than social networking websites.

It is understood at least five Hampshire secondary schools – Wildern School in Hedge End, Applemore College in Dibden Purlieu, Wyvern Technology College in Fair Oak and Chandler’s Ford schools Toynbee and Thornden – have installed cashless systems in their canteens.

Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill in Southampton also has the technology in place for school meals, while Oasis Academy Mayfield uses it in its library, as do some county primaries.

The schools say parents have been informed and the vast majority are happy with the new systems and no one has been forced to give information if they don’t want to.

Head teachers say the information would not be shared with police and will be destroyed when the child leaves school.

It has helped to slash long lunchtime canteen queues while there is no chance of children losing cash or expensive cards and there is less of a stigma for youngsters receiving free meals.

But human rights charity Liberty questioned whether it is “really ever necessary” for schools to collect biometric data, including fingerprints.

The National Union of Teachers has also expressed concern, saying it believes explicit consent should be needed before such sensitive data is collected and it is not good enough to assume parents agree to the practice. A Liberty spokesman said: “Fingerprints are a very serious set of data more commonly used by the police in criminal investigations.

“How can withdrawing library books and paying for school meals compare? And what sort of message does this send to children about their personal privacy?

“The Government should be doing more to discourage schools from obtaining biometric data in this way.”

One Hampshire parent, who asked not to be named, told the Daily Echo they were worried about the information falling into the wrong hands.

They said: “We have to give permission for photographs to be used but not for biometric data such as fingerprinting, which potentially would be far more damaging from a safeguarding perspective.

“If the database was hacked, and we all know how easy hacking appears to be these days, this could cause identity theft issues.

“From talking to fellow parents many did not know that their children’s fingerprints had even been collected and were unhappy but did not want to make a fuss. I cannot believe it is legal to do this, but it is.”

Marie-Lou Litton, head teacher at Wildern, said parents had been informed before the £20,000 system was installed, through letters home and information on the school website.

She said: “We didn’t want to invest in a system that parents would then say ‘we’re not going to use’.

“We’ve only had one letter from a parent saying we definitely don’t want to do it and contact from another parent afterwards to say they were unhappy.

“The Information Commissioner’s Office says you don’t have to ask consent to use a biometric system.

“But any of the youngsters who didn’t want to do it, they didn’t have to do it.”

Ms Litton said the information is securely held by the school and wouldn’t be shared with any third party, even the police.

Matthew Longden, head teacher at The Toynbee School, said: “We did a consultation with parents to make sure they knew what it is all about and I think we’ve had one parent who doesn’t agree with it, but we are able to use the card system we used before.

“It’s just so much quicker for us at lunchtimes and we haven’t got problems with children losing cards or another kid using them and despite some initial fears from parents it’s been very positively received.”

Ian Golding, principal at Oasis Academy Lord’s Hill, said: “None of the data is used for anything else whatsoever, other than for lunch money in and out.

“Access to the system is restricted to key staff only.”