Pippa writes:
As North Adams School in Massachusetts plans to use fingerprint biometrics to improve lunch line efficiency, some parents are understandably concerned about how using a biometric system erodes their children’s privacy. Most of the articles on North Adams School adopting biometrics seek to reassure parents and readers that its not a database of fingerprints but just a number string. The reality is that that number string is the biometric identifier derived from the fingerprint and that personal biometric, digital identifier is capable of being transferred across databases.
Here in the UK personal biometric identification used in schools has the potential to be accessed by the UK Police or other agencies, without the knowledge of the child or the parent. I’m not sure if this is also the case in Massachusetts but it would be a question I would ask if I were a parent there.
Read more on Biometrics in Schools.