Child fingerprinting spreads further
Posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007 by Home Office WatchCategory: Biometrics
The Sunday Times reports that children as young as 11 are to be fingerprinted for passports:
Leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010, with a batch of 295,000 youngsters who apply for passports.
The Home Office expects 545,000 children aged 11 and over to have their prints taken in 2011, with the figure settling at an annual 495,000 from 2014. Their fingerprints will be held on a database also used by the Immigration and Nationality Directorate to store the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
But this isn’t the first foray into mass fingerprinting of children. At least 3000 schools are taking fingerprints from children as young as three, usually without parental consent or guidelines for protecting the data. Leave Them Kids Alone is running a campaign to end this, together with the Lib Dem Education team.
But the UK also systematically takes fingerprints from asylum seekers from the age of 5 upwards - they report “no problems” doing so in this EU report. And they’ve trialled taking fingerprints from under-5s, just in case those asylum toddlers go out on the rampage, I suppose.
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March 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Using fingerprints for library use is not as sinister as it may sound. The prints are not accesible by anyone else and are not given to Govt. bodies. They are deleted when the child leaves the school. In primary schools libraries are chronically underfunded and there is simply not enough adult time available for more traditional methods.
March 12th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
The problem with Shaun Thomas’ argument is that every time data is provided for some innocent purpose we quickly get the argument that it should be made available to the law enforcement agencies… and anyone who argues against this clearly has something to hide haven’t they???
March 12th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
It seems that there are sections of the police who are determined to use any opening to build up a general biometric database.
For instance a friend of mine was effectively forced into giving Essex Police a set of finger prints in order to hire a car at Stansted Airport. It could be argued that he could refuse, but the car was pre-booked: no finger prints, no transport. No notice of this practice was given on the car hire website.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Of course children are fingerprinted as part of the asylum process: fingerprints are set in their pattern by the age of 5, and this is one of the most reliable biometrics. there’s no scandal involved in ensuring that those who qualify for benefits receive them, and those who are subject to the asylum process are kept track of. I am a Lib Dem, but not as naive as some it seems: children have, for example been used to fraudulently claim benefits for a number of asylum-seekers, with the child being represented as kith and kin of several families. When identities are difficult to ascertain, fingerprints are often the answer.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Some years ago, a young friend of mine was arrested by the police on suspicion of what ? … - we have yet to find out - …
He was forced to give his finger print and DNA .. He was threatened that he would be called back to the Police Station for a possible charge.
My Solicitor who took the case found that there was no way he could do anything, because the Law was so vague as to lean in favour of the Police.
What makes any Government with any real care for it’s people make open ended Laws unless it has something to hide from us.
Everything about the ID Cards, the Cameras,finger printing, DNA along with the mass Surveillance issue in this country under this Government smacks of a Communistic / Fascistic approach to control.- Say what you like, the Answer often to this call is ‘If you have nothing to hide, then there won’t be any problem’.
My reply is this, ‘Drivel’ When this Government show us openly what they are doing and begins to be open an honest.. (Don’t hold your breath at this point) Then we the People might just say that they have nothing to hide.
We must deal with these breaches of our rights vigorously and deal with those politicians likewise. They and people like them should not be allowed to hold office in any way shape or form.
It is time that we as the people get organised to deal with this Government and dump it at the next election once and for all.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I was totally unaware that sets of fingerprints could be taken by organisations other than the police (with due cause).
The panic into which the governmant has been thrown by terror threat is insidious as these examples show - thin end of terrible wedges.
March 12th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
One interesting thing about data is that it can be given away again and again without diminishing what what you have. It would be interesting to hear how Mr Thomas knows that “The prints are not accesible by anyone else and are not given to Govt. bodies.” and even if it is the case now, under what pretext could we believe that it would not happen in the future?
Anyone who clings to the wreakage of the “nothing to hide = nothing to fear” equine fertilser has a firm grasp on a passing straw. Just ask Walter Wolfgang.
March 12th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Well not surprised this government thinks and does what it likes,big brother is here watching us. ITS ABOUT TIME the public done something about it,for a start get rid of this regime .
March 12th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Sean, we have to ask ourselves why, out of all the thousands of schools that have fingerprinted their pupils, not one (as far as I am aware) has asked parental permission to do so.
I would have thought that asking permission would have been the first thing head teachers (or any reasonable person) would think of doing.
What instructions did the Government give to schools ? I would be very interested if you have any information about this.
The Information Commissioner believes that, since fingerprints are not actually stored on the system, parental knowledge and consent are not required.
This is quite an incredible position. If the fingerprint data on the computer is sufficient to identify an individual - who cares if an image of the fingerprint is stored or not ? - it makes no difference.
Teachers have been told that the fingerprint data is “a code”, “a bar code” or “a number”. It is actually 300 bytes of data that forms a map of the minutiae (significant points) of a child’s fingerprint.
See:
http://www.microlib.co.uk/news.....%20byte%22
for a description of this by Micro Librarian Systems Ltd - the suppliers of Junior Librarian and Eclipse products.
In addition, although the data is encrypted, the Government has the power to demand encryption keys from the system supplier, so that is not an obstacle to them.
What guarantee is there that the Library systems actually operate, and will continue to operate in the way that teachers and parents have been led to believe they do ?
The computers containing the fingerprint data will surely be connected to the Internet, so that software updates can be installed.
Can we really be sure that there is no existing back-door mechanism that will automatically transmit fingerprint data or images to police/government databases ?
Can we be certain that the government will never commission a software update that will introduce a back-door mechanism at some time in the future ?
The schools would probably be unaware of this happening until it is too late (if at all).
Since the current systems have been introduced without parental knowledge or consent, why should the government keep us informed of any subsequent changes to the systems ?
Once the fingerprints are in the hands of the government, they will never be deleted and could be compared against prints found at crime scenes, in the same way that Mr. Blair has publicly stated will happen with fingerprints on the National Identity Register.
Automatic fingerprint matching is inherently imperfect, crime scene prints have a worryingly large chance of being incorrectly matched with an those of an innocent person.
See paragraph 170 of:
http://www.publications.parlia.....07.htm#a28
for details of false match rates.
If a child has never touched a fingerprint scanner, there is zero probability of being incorrectly investigated for a crime.
If a child has touched a scanner he or she will be at the mercy of the matching algorithm for the rest of their lives.
March 12th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Being identified with a ‘gold standard’ id document such as your fingerprints. For merely taking out a book from a school library. Is simply another way of introducing the mass registration and constant identification of every citizen in the UK. multiple times a day. To create a more ordered controllable population for those in power to manage. If it is seen by school children as normal practice to hand over your fingerprints for a library book its going to be very easy indeed for the government to persuade that generation to hand thier fingerprintd over for every transaction or contact they make regaurding purchases or services. With all the subsequent personalised information held by the government forever. 1984 here we come…..
So I’m afraid Shaun it is sinister and has to be seen in the context of what else the government are forcing on the British population.
March 13th, 2007 at 9:14 am
I do not trust any of the government agencies when it comes to maintaining confidentiality of any personal data (quite apart from biometric data) so that I would resist any measures that increase the scope of data acquired for any purposes.
March 13th, 2007 at 10:02 am
This must be resisted at all costs. At 78 years I have never had a fingerprint take, and dont intend to start now. Note that for persons living abroad, like myself, no provision has yet been made for recording biomentric details for passport applications/renewals. No ‘infrastructure in place my UK MP reports from the HO. Where does this leave us at UK airports? More delays? A little interrogation perhaps?
DA
March 13th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Re Simon Bonsor Says:
March 12th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Oh Simon, What have you done - Are you sure you do not work for the Government…
This sort of rhetoric is so usual from people who have been taken in by all the drivel.
If any so called cheating (A major fallacy by the way Simon - Most fraud is perpetrated by those who accesses to our banking and pensions systems) asylum seeker, (There are few who have been arrested and few prosecuted) -There are more people -Native to this land -Who are fiddling the system .. I suppose all those who are signing on should have their prints taken as well - like any other person who may wish to defraud the system wants to do so, no amount of so called protections will stop what they want to do if they are determined.
On top of the above information - as you seem to have a problem checking information out. You have no idea how simple it is to recreate and distort information especially on a finger print (Computerised System - Because all the finger printing of children is on a system of this type - Just in case you were not aware - The inky system has gone … OK!) or indeed the ID so called safe system. Any one with a basic knowledge of encryption can and will use it to their advantage.
Use your mind think search out the reality here and stop feeling a benevolent and an anal retentive desire to serve any Government that uses any form of control as this one is doing to us.
Just to let you know, My Grandchildren faced the dilemma of finger printing.. I soon put a stop to it.. I have not had any feed back yet but if and when I do I will be sure to let you know.. I have told the school if our children need books and they were not prepared to let the children have them we would provide all that they need.
Don’t be taken in by the drivel passed on by Government departments.
If the basis of truth were the possibility of acceptance of information from this Government … Then their record in this matter should speak for it’s self.
March 13th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Shaun Thomas Says:
March 12th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Shaun,
You are joking of course..
The computer finger printing is set on line and guess what the computer used holds information on it’s hard disc .. LoL
Where have you been ?
Anyone with an ounce of knowledge in this world today can pick it up and use the information.
Oh and it will not stop with just finger prints ..
March 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Keep fighting, Lib Dems, your country needs you!
March 14th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Having not long finished reading George Orwell’s ‘1984′, I felt a very strong sense deja vu reading this article. There can be no logical argument for collecting the fingerprints of children. It’s just another sinister example of the way this government seeks to monitor every aspect of our lives.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Richard Clay is rightly concerned about the ever increasing invasion by government into our private lives.
He has described us in the UK as citizens but we are not, we are subjects.
The same thing? Here below is a dictionary description of the two.
subject (PERSON)
noun {C}
a person who lives in or who has the right to live in a particular country, especially a country with a king or queen:
- He is a British subject.
citizen
noun {C}
a person who is a member of a particular country and who has rights because of being born there or because of being given rights, or a person who lives in a particular town or city:
- The interests of British citizens living abroad are protected by the British Embassy.
- He applied to become an American citizen.
- The citizens of Moscow woke up this morning to find they had a new government.
- Old people are just treated like second-class citizens (= unimportant people).
- He reassured people that law-abiding citizens (= people who do not break the law) would have nothing to fear from the enquiries.
The citizen has rights not merely the right of residence and in a proper country citizens’ rights are protected by a Bill of Rights or a Constitution or something like that. In the UK we have neither.
There are those who will say we do have a constitution, an unwritten one and that is better because it allows us to more easily change it when necessary. What that really means is that the well connected great and the good can change it whenever they wish to suit themselves, the rest of us just have to put up with it.
The Human Rights Act?
This Labour Government want to dump it in the rubbish bin.
The Freedom of Information Act?
Not that good to start with but this Labour Government are changing it so we will return to the days where we cannot find out what they are up to.
They clearly have something to hide which means that we have something to fear.
You might say what has this to do with fingerprinting of school children? Well everything actually.
March 15th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Aitken Brotherston Says:
March 15th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Hi Aitken Brotherston
Bravo,
At last clear insight .. Keep it up.
We need to dispell all this cahter about how wonderful Governments do things for us because we are unable to decide.
We need a Bil oof Rigts and we need it now…
March 26th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
According to the Government’s own paper, there’s a false match rate of 1 in 1 million. Good? Hardly. That means for each of us in the UK, there are about SIXTY others who will register as “near enough to be the same” on their biometrics. If just one of those - a mere 2% of the total - turns out to be criminal, any of that 60 could be presumed guilty…
…and if that level of “proof” is properly recognised to be inadequate, the whole point of the database disappears, as it can’t prove anything conclusively.
April 3rd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Don’t be an idiot Ray Hampton: I speak from experience- it is you have been brain- washed by self-interest groups, not me.
And no it’s not rhetoric.
I will repeat: Children have been used in multiple claims for assistance. Fact.
Children have been passed from family to family in order to secure housing. Fact.
Keeping track of asylum seeking families in the UK is a difficult enough problem without whinging about the use of biometrics.
It is sheer hypocrisy, as Lib Dems, if our fellow Democrats in Europe have supported ID cards and fingerprint databases, and a much greater range of ‘registrations’ (for example your home address with the police, which is par for the course in the Benelux countries)and we then bleat about these measures in the UK!
April 18th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Simon, I am sorry not to have answered your message earlier. I have been away and just returned.
Simon, wake up, If you think the only way to stop people breaking the law is to finger print them, store their DNA, make them carry ID Cards and spot all the public places with cameras, oh and finally locked em up.
We have the highest rate of imprisoned children under 18 years in Europe and we imprison so many people for petty crime, Still the crime rate is through the roof.
Wake up please……
You sir, are sadly mistaken and naive if you think this stuff will stop crime and terror.
It has not stopped crime in the countries mentioned. Pray tell me why this contry would be any different.
It is people like you, who say things like - ‘If you have nothing to hide, why the problem’?
Have you seen what this Government has proposed to do to the already destroyed Freedom of Information Act? Well, if they have nothing to hide, why are they trying to restrict and put barriers in the way of acess to information about their activities.
This Government lied through it’s back teeth about the War in Iraq and many other things whilst it has been in power, you want to trust them with you and your children’s lives. Do you not see the way they treat our soldiers after they gave all in some cases for this country. I refer here to Falklands as well as Afghanistan & both Iraq wars.
No thank you, I would not trust them with your children and I certainly would not trust them with mine.
You are brain washed, and if you think this or any government will keep yours or any other data private.. You are well and truly off your trolley.
Let’s pose a question.. Re: information and stopping crime - just as an intro:
In the USA there has been ID Cards and Data bases for almost everyone who actually breaths in that country. They will admit that they have no control over crime.
Recent events show you that to be the case.
The more observed and oppressed a society is and the more laws made to control and monitor, the more crime riddled and problematic it becomes.
Your suggestion that asylum seekers are moving children around for benefits and other goodies is a a farce and you know that this is scare mongering.
You are wrong and the statistics show that the problem you mention is rare. However, the opposite to that which you infer. If anything it is the indigenous population who fiddle and abuse the benefit system.
More money is wasted by this Governments polices investigating the small amount of so called benefit fraud.
The same goes for the road tax issue, more money is spent in trying to catch the crooks / criminals who I might ad again at this stage are mainly the indigenous population. Than is saved by all the so called investigations and prosecutions.
You want to look back to the 70’s when the news rags, resorted to saying ‘It’s the black men who mug people, get all the benefits and get all jobs. It was a lie then and a bigger lie now.
The crime rate caused by the asylum seekers is almost nil compared with the group mentioned above. It is so easy for people like yourself to find fault with a most vulnerable group in our society.
Here is a possible solution to the rabid issues of public fraud.
When Government departments pays a decent wage to staff (Lets be honest here - they (The Government) collect enough taxes) in their employ and give them the training and equipment to do their job properly.
When the Government actually encourages and implements prevention then we will see hundreds even millions saved - we need not waste money on a proven useless, stupid and ineffectual ID Card system
If you are so keen on wanting to have all these things you say we bleat about; Then I suggest you move to those wonderful countries that you mention. Or are they so great that you still live here.
Ray Hampton
May 5th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Well done to the people of Wales & Scotland. You have seen the sneaky and insidious Government try to control us by finger printing, surveillance and so called safe ID Cards.. The joining of our personal information to all kinds of Government bodies etc..
You should be able to see by what has happened over the last couple of days , that we the people are very angry with the abuse of power by the Government of the day. People are not as stupid as you in Government think.
You have been given a good smack on the hand and I hope that this is a picture of the events for the coming general election.. You must go and so must your orchestrated sale of the country and your deliberate surveillance of the people of this country.