BBC News: Biometric data: Schools will need parents' approval

[6Foot2]

Link: BBC News - Biometric data: Schools will need parents' approval

 

...New government guidance says written parental permission must be obtained to use students' biometric data.

Pupils themselves will also be allowed to refuse to participate...

 

If your systems are based on using biometric data and parents or pupils refuse to have their biometric data recorded how does that student then borrow a library book, get a lunch,...?

[FragglePete]

We have a number of students here that are not on our Vericool system, and we just deal with it. The catering staff can manually select a child from the system and money can be put on their account manually also by the catering staff. A photo of the student is shown during the process so identity can be verified.

 

Pete

[Steve21]

Link: BBC News - Biometric data: Schools will need parents' approval

 

 

 

If your systems are based on using biometric data and parents or pupils refuse to have their biometric data recorded how does that student then borrow a library book, get a lunch,...?

 

Same as we already do I guess Pin code, or manual lookup. Only had a handful of parents/students refuse in the last two years registrations I've done. (We already get written permissions/refusals)

 

Steve

[john]

Not new news, I know NRS told us of this proposed change back before the summer holidays as it was in the middle of our planning to go live with Cashless, so for the current students we did Opt-Out and for the new intake from September we did Opt-In instead, hasn't made any difference as far as we can tell and even some parents who said no the students have then said they hate being different and feel silly slowing things down when being looked up so they want to be registered instead!

 

The key bit in the article is:

The new advice, which is now being consulted on, will come into effect from September 2013.

So it was being consulted on so I don't know what the outcome is but it could all change...

[bossman]

We have employed this method for the past 5 years, student who's parents decline are given a card similar to a bank card, the first one they get for free the second costs £5.

 

Method in the madness as it only takes the student a couple of months to lose a few cards and the parents are on the phone asking for their child to be part of the biometric system hehe!

 

It only reads 17 points of the actual fingerprint and it takes at least 24 points to determine a true match. This is the information passed on to the parents and most are in agreeance but you always get one.

[GrumbleDook]

Try asking parents if they include children in the photos they upload to FaceBook, or if they use iPhoto with PhotoStream (which has already tagged their children via facial recognition within iPhoto), or if they use location tagging on their mobile phones when taking pics of their children in the park, etc.

 

If they are going to be extremely careful about data management when it comes to their children then you could always, as a school, offer to run eSafety sessions to raise awareness of what other data they may be allowing into the wild. It is not to say that they shouldn't use the above, just that they should be aware of issues and concerns and deal with things appropriately.

 

This tends to work for me.