Protecting private data has always been an important issue, but none more so when it comes to the personal details of our children. There have been two news stories this week regarding the concern surrounding the storage of young peoples’ data…

Many of us may still consider biometric technology as quite futuristic and something often seen in films. However, it’s actually being used quite widely in education today, with about 30% of secondary schools asking children to swipe a fingerprint for registration and to borrow library books.

Some have likened this new technology to a ‘Big Brother’ environment, as thousands of pupils have their fingerprint data recorded and many without parental permission. There have been reports of schools such as the Capital City Academy in North London ‘frogmarching’ pupils to be fingerprinted, causing an uproar as parent’s were not consulted first.  The school had to apologise and delete all fingerprints that were taken without consent.

The Education Secretary Michael Gove has pledged to ban schools from fingerprinting pupils unless they have first obtained explicit parental permission.

Alex Deane, director of campaign group Big Brother Watch, commented, “the use of fingerprinting in schools is disproportionate and intrusive – in some cases, parents aren’t even asked whether they agree with it. Schools are not equipped to hold this sort of unique and personal data. By taking it for trivial purposes schools are jeopardising the privacy of the students for the rest of their lives.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office states: “There is nothing explicit in the Data Protection Act to require schools to seek consent from all parents before implementing a fingerprinting application. However, unless schools can be certain that all children understand the implications of giving their fingerprints, they must fully involve parents in order to ensure that the information is obtained fairly.”

Schools insist biometric systems are not a concern because they do not store children’s actual fingerprints. The finger scan machines create a mathematical algorithm which cannot be converted back into an image of a fingerprint.

Elsewhere in the news, we heard yesterday that the ContactPoint database, which lists personal details of all 11 million children in England, will be scrapped by the new government.

The computerised database scheme cost £224 million. Although it was designed to protect children from harm, it caused many concerns about state snooping and large-scale costs.

Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, promised an end to ContactPoint as part of a fresh review of the role of social workers in protecting endangered children.

The ContactPoint database came about after the murder of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie in 2000, intending to make sure no child in danger could ever again go unnoticed by authorities.

But a large number of people – around 400,000 – have had access to ContactPoint records, which include details regarding sex, drug and mental health problems. 50,000 people, such as politicians and celebrities, were to be allowed to keep their identities and details about their children off the system.

The main issue with both the biometric process and central database records is the actual storage of the data. If the records are stored for a period of time, this increases the chance of unauthorised individuals accessing private details or the information being accidentally leaked out. Organisations that handle children’s’ private data need to ensure that details are only stored if absolutely necessary and that they remain securely locked down and accessible only to a minimum number of people.