Industry News
Biometric rules issued to schools
Posted on 24th July 2007
Schools which use biometric information of their pupils for registration, meal payments or library loans, should get rid of the data as soon as they no longer need it, the schools minister has said.
Among rising concerns over privacy, and the legal status of holding such information, Jim Knight, has said that this information should be destroyed as soon as pupils leave school.
"Schools are well used to handling sensitive information like attendance registers, behaviour records and home addresses. But we are absolutely clear that they have to comply with data protection laws," he said.
According to the new guidelines, the information cannot be shared with any third parties, and should be used only for its stated purpose.
However, the Conservatives have criticised the guidance for being too "weak".
"It is very weak as it neither requires schools to seek parental consent nor recognises the serious issues at stake with schools fingerprinting children simply for administrative convenience," Nick Gibb, shadow schools minister, argued.
The guidance by the government's school agency Becta does not believe that the practice of fingerprinting pupils should be banned, but simply regulated.
The schools minister defended the system as making things easier, cutting queues at lunch time, or for registration and keeping registration data at hand when children are moving from class to class.