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* NEW VIDEO  Nothing to hide, nothing to fear? Don't you believe it!  9th Dec 2008 *
"The assault on the Greens was a terrorist attack on civil liberties." The Independent, December 1st, 2008
 
Thursday November 27th 2008 - "Greengate" (aka "Leakgate") - a senior opposition MP arrested for doing his job. His crime - passing information to the media. Where did this happen? Zimbabwe? China? Putin's Russia? The former East Germany? No. A very black day for British democracy as Damian Green MP spent nine hours in police custody. His fingerprints and DNA were taken and retained. Previously, police and soldiers had been forbidden to enter Parliament without permission since King Charles I sent in troops to arrest a group of lawmakers in 1642. Yet according to Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons,, the anti-terror police who entered parliament in 2008 didn't even have a warrant.
 
"Anyone who thinks that this incident is being somehow blown out of proportion by opposition politicians and an excitable media had better think again. A senior opposition spokesman has been arrested and detained, had his personal possessions and confidential correspondence examined, and his family home occupied, without being suspected of any criminal offence."
 
"The object of the exercise seems to have been intimidation and the flaunting of power. Short of an outright, totalitarian suspension of democracy, this is about as serious as it gets. Freedom is under threat in ways that we would not have thought conceivable a generation ago." Daily Telegraph, November 30th, 2008
 
On the day terrorists attacked Mumbai, a day when MI5 categorised the UK terror threat as "severe", and there were even suggestions, later denied, that Britons may have been involved in the attacks, around twenty anti-terrorism officers were busy investigating a middle-aged Tory MP from Kent. At least nine UK anti-terror police searched the MP's home, while others probed his Commons and constituency offices. As they were from the Counter-terrorist Unit, is it safe to presume the officers who raided Mr Green's home (and terrified a 15 year old girl) were armed?
 
"If this kind of totalitarian treatment can be meted out to a member of the Shadow Cabinet, where does it leave the rest of us?" Daily Mail, December 2nd, 2008
 
On December 2, 2008, the coroner at the inquest of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot dead by counter-terrorist police on the London Underground, told jurors they were not allowed to return a verdict of unlawful killing. The coroner also warned jurors that they must not attach any criminal or civil fault to any individuals. This extraordinary ruling sets a legal precedent. Passengers on the train claimed they did not hear officers shout "armed police" at Mr de Menezes before shooting him seven times in the head. So it seems counter-terrorist police are free to enter parliament at will, without even informing the Home Secretary, or shoot dead an innocent member of the public allegedly without warning. A police state is simply a society where the police are above the law.
 
"Because of the threat of terrorism, the police have new powers to protect us. They and we must be vigilant lest they are used to oppress us." The Herald, December 2nd, 2008
 
Yet according to Patrick Mercer MP, chair of the influential Commons counter-terrorism sub committee, at current levels British security forces would not be able to cope with a Mumbai-style terrorist attack. This raises the question of why twenty such officers were investigating an MP when their clear duty at a time of international crisis was to protect the public. After the arrest, ministers allegedly arranged a private meeting to 'spin' the disgraceful affair, let's look at the facts...
 
"If Damian Green can be banged up for nine hours for telling the truth, what hope for you and me? " The Sun, December 1st, 2008
 
How would you feel if the government suddenly passed a law that every adult had to be fingerprinted at their local police
station? Yet schools have already fingerprinted more than two million children, some as young as three. And neither
they, nor their parents, were ever asked for their consent. With govenrment spin doctors working overtime to portray this
as a bit of harmless 'fun', many experts feel this is part of an enormous softening-up exercise targeting society's most
impressionable, so they'll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control. What's more, tens of millions of pounds of
taxpayers money are being wasted on installing fingerprint readers in schools."You'll be monitored for life. That's why
the government is targeting students and young people, to get them on before they realise what's happening." Phil
Booth, No2ID, March 7, The Guardian. As parents, we just want our kids to have the chance grow up free, as we did.  
 Please help us to put a stop to this outrage by writing to your MP. Act now before it's too late.
 
 "A whole generation of children not involved with any criminal behaviour may be growing up thinking fingerprinting
is just a 'normal' way of being identified, and innocuous phrases like school 'kiddy-printing' only further minimises
what is going on. At worst children are being inducted into the world of the 'surveillance society' without really
knowing what it means." Terry Thomas, Professor of Criminal Justice Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University.  
 
 "We need to take very great care not to fall into a way of life in which freedom's back is broken by the relentless pressure of a security State." Sir Ken Macdonald QC, Director of Public Prosecutions (2003-2008)  
 
 "Every generation that is born into a free society has a sacred duty. That is to pass that free society on to the next generation, perhaps enhanced but certainly intact. Unless we take action now we will be the first generation in hundreds of years of struggle to fail in that duty." Henry Porter, novelist and political columnist for the Observer, 13 Sept 2008  
 
 If you think we're over-reacting, watch The Last Enemy, available now on DVD, the BBC drama criticised by former
Home Secretary David Blunkett for "giving away too many Government secrets"... What next? CCTV in school toilets?
 
* NEW VIDEO   How to fool your school's £20,000 fingerprint system!  NEW VIDEO *
 
 
* NEW  Liverpool City Council condemns school fingerprinting  13th Oct 2008 *
 
 
ID Card Timetable

  • End of 2008 - Launch of ID cards for non-EU foreign nationals
  • End of 2009 - First ID cards for UK citizens in "sensitive roles" such as airport staff
  • End of 2010 - ID cards for young people
  • 2011-12 - Mass implementation starts with details of all passport renewals entered on national ID database, with choice of passport or ID card or both
  • 2017 - "Universal" coverage. 80% of the population achieved. MPs will vote on compulsion after general election, due by June 2010 at latest
 
>> Vital questions you need to ask your children's school about fingerprinting <<
"I have not been able to find a single piece of published research which suggests that the use of biometrics in
schools promotes healthy eating or improves reading skills amongst children. I am concerned that these reasons
are being given as a justification for fingerprinting children. There is absolutely no evidence for such claims."
Dr Sandra Leaton Gray, Director of Studies, Sociology of Education, Homerton College, Cambridge
"If you have children, make sure their schools have nothing to do with this odious system."  John Naughton The Observer
Discgate: what are the implications for kiddyprinting?   Primary school data 'at risk'
 
11-10-07 Daily Mail: Read 'Children's fingerprints - The sinister truth' in full-screen mode     (press 'back' on your browser to return to ltka)
 
School
Biometrics:
The Legal
Conundrum 
 
by Patricia
Deubel, PhD 
 
The Journal,
10 April 2007		 Fingerprinting is being introduced in thousands of UK schools as part of subsidised library, catering and/or registration packages they have purchased, strongly encouraged by central government. This is always without explicit parental consent, often even without parental knowledge. With some systems costing over £20,000 maybe schools should spend their budget on books? Where is the evidence that these systems help children to read? In the five years since kiddyprinting started, England has slumped from 3rd to 19th position in a major international league table for education. And why shouldn't schools ask for parents' and kids' express permission before going ahead? Of course the suppliers say their systems are secure, they're trying to make money off of them. Leave Them Kids Alone! Fingerprint
foreboding 
 
by James
Carroll 
 
The Boston
Globe, 09
April 2007
"How dare you assume or try to record an identifying mark of my child without any thought of asking my permission? Lack of consent isn't implied consent. I do not give consent. Period." Mary Heim, US parent given one day to opt out of school fingerprinting. (22-03-2007)
"I like taking books out - but I'm not even that bothered about reading." Nottingham pupil Cheyanne Haye, 13, commenting on a biometric school library system, 11 May 2007
Who would you trust? Your school, quoting in good faith from a seller's glossy brochure, or a dozen of the world's leading security experts?
Think your kids are safe at school?  Watch this (video 1)    
 You think biometrics are secure? Think again... (video 2)  
BanTheScan - Campaigning against the fingerprinting of U.S. schoolchildren            
 
 
 UK: Peers slam school fingerprinting.
Peers have criticised the "intrusive" and increasingly common practice of schools taking children's fingerprints without seeking parental consent.
Lib Dem, Tory and crossbench peers criticised the practice as intrusive, alarming and "completely astonishing".
19-03-07 BBC News - read more 		 
 
 EU: Ireland pounces on school fingerprinters.
The Irish Information Commissioner's Office has come down on the notion of school fingerprinting and taken early action to prevent the technology being deployed arbitrarily. "There are several long established and successful alternative methods."
23-03-07 The Register - read more
US: Scan Plan Scrapped.
In response to mounting evidence, ardent parental protest and buckets full of uncertainty, a school scrapped plans for biometric fingerprint scanning in lunch lines. "Ban the Scan" has finally materialized as school policy.
19-04-07 Gazette - read more
UK: School fingerprinters may be breaking the law.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said in a statement to the BBC Radio 4 Programme You and Yours that schools who refused school dinners to kids who won't scan their fingerprints might be in breach of the law.
04-10-07 The Register - read more
"As far as we were concerned, it wasn't necessary for us to seek parental consent in this." Stephen Bowden, headmaster, Porth County Comprehensive, 11 September 2006
"Are we sending our kids to school or to prison? We wouldn't accept fingerprinting for adults without informed consent so it is utterly outrageous that children as young as three are being targeted." Phil Booth, No2ID, 03 July 2006
 
Read 'Biometrics in Schools' in full-screen mode     (press 'back' on your browser to return to ltka)
 
"Frankly, using fingerprints without parental consent is at the least insensitive, and at worst, quite possibly illegal - think of this - How would the school staff feel if the parents were to have the teacher's fingerprints and home addresses without permission?" Jon Crowcroft, Marconi Professor of Communications Systems, University of Cambridge, 04 Jul 2006
 
L T K AThe widespread use of biometrics in schools - benefits vs risks     read the full details here
BENEFITSRISKS
MY CHILD
  • nothing whatsoever proved independently despite manufacturers' ambitious claims - based on little more than anecdotes

    • (children have been eating healthily and reading for centuries, without the need for fingerprinting)
OUR SCHOOL
THE MANUFACTURER
THE GOVERNMENT
"People have to be stark, raving mad to use conventional biometrics to improve the efficiency of a children's lunch line." Kim Cameron, architect of identity and access in Microsoft's connected systems division, 05 April 2007
"If a child has never touched a fingerprint scanner, there is zero probability of being incorrectly investigated for a crime. Once a child has touched a scanner they will be at the mercy of the matching algorithm for the rest of their lives." Brian Drury, IT security consultant
fingerprinting children
"As well as burglary, you still owe £2.50 for that Noddy book you borrowed twenty five years ago."
cartoon © Colin Shelbourn 2006 		"System doesn't store a fingerprint" The 'honest' truth, but not the whole truth? Biometrics: myths debunked.
Schools that introduce fingerprinting usually try to reassure parents by repeating a series of misleading claims given to them by manufacturers, who have more than five years' experience in 'handling' parents. The facts are as follows...
28-03-07 LTKA exclusive- read more 		UK: Guantanamo firm enters British schools.
A military company connected to the US interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay camp is behind a finger-printing system in UK schools.
21-07-06 Times Ed. Supplement
UK: Is this the real reason why schools are so keen to fingerprint kids? Millions of children aged 11 and over are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, also used to store the fingerprints of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers.
04-03-07 The Times - read more 		UK: Please urge your MP to sign EDM 686 (against school fingerprinting).
"That this House is alarmed at the growing practice of schools collecting and storing the biometric details of children as young as three; notes that up to 3,500 schools use biometric software to record the data of approximately three quarters of a million children." (Contact your MP here)
19-01-07 UK Parliament - read more
UK: Dudley Council's disgraceful "Tips For Fingerprinting Children"    14-09-06  read more
This appalling page was online from November 2001 until September 14th 2006 when all trace of it suddenly disappeared, less than 12 hours after we featured it. Now it's back, thanks to the official Internet Archive.
"We are a testing ground for this new technology. It's like an ID card for kids..." Jim Kelly, Palm Beach County schools' police chief, speaking to the Sun-Sentinel, 07 July 2004
"The world has no answer to terrorism without using these things and I would see us as getting [pupils] ready for the world in which they will have to live." Chris Bridge, headmaster, Huntington Secondary, York, 08 January 2007
 
  
Read the Data Protection Commissioner's guidance to schools in full-screen mode     (press 'back' to return to ltka)
 
"We were all so shocked when America started fingerprinting foreigners, yet all along we were fingerprinting kids." Gus Hosein, Privacy International, 12 January 2007
"We ought to be teaching children that you shouldn't give up your biometrics without question." Terri Dowty, Action on Rights for Children, 15 January 2007
UK: A Bradford school's outrageous response to parents' legitimate worries. Every child in the school is fingerprinted the day after they receive a letter from a parent, who is a computer expert, expressing serious concerns. Parents vow to fight on.
28-03-07 Parent's blog - read more
fingerprint scanner This diagram clearly shows how school library fingerprint scanners, used on children from the age of three, work in exactly the same way as those used by the police to track and identify criminals.

In the US an adult can buy a gun and live ammunition without being fingerprinted. In the UK five-year-old children are fingerprinted in the school library just so they can take out a book of nursery rhymes. Even China has scrapped school fingerprinting. So why haven't we?? All UK opposition parties have condemned this disgraceful infringement of the civil liberties of our most vulnerable.

UK: Security experts condemn school fingerprinting as risky and unnecessary.
There is a critical risk of identity theft, claim a number of leading independent industry insiders.
01-04-07 LTKA exclusive - read more
UK: School fingerprinting combats terrorism, claims head teacher.
"The world has no answer to terrorism without using these things and I would see us as getting [pupils] ready for the world in which they will have to live." Chris Bridge, headmaster, Huntington Secondary, York
08-01-07 York Press - read more
"At best, the technology is overkill and a waste of taxpayer money. At worst, it sets a dark precedent, conditioning students at a young age to embrace the idea of Big Brother-style biometric tracking. If ever there was a generation that would not oppose a government system for universal ID, it's this one." Chris Hoofnagle, associate director, Electronic Privacy Information Center, 09 September 2003
 
  
Read ltka's mission statement in full-screen mode     (press 'back' on your browser to return to ltka)
 
UK: Row after kids fingerprinted.
A row has blown up after it was revealed children as young as six have had their fingerprints taken - to borrow books from their school libraries. The move has sparked outrage among parents. One parent, whose daughter had her prints taken when she was just six-years-old, said: "I'm just not happy at all. These are children, not terrorists or criminals."
15-03-07 Sheffield Today - read more 		UK: Fingerprinting In Schools: Probe Call.
At least 17 county schools are fingerprinting children as young as four-years-old. An urgent investigation has now been launched by Gloucestershire County Council. It is believed some of the schools have been operating the system for up to three years without the education authority's knowledge.
29-03-07 The Citizen - read more
UK: A police fingerprint officer's view on fingerprinting children.
"If you have not been asked explicitly for your signed consent to allow your child's prints to be taken, kick up a huge stink immediately. Even arrested persons are asked to sign consent to their prints being taken."
18-03-07 Pippa King - read more 		UK: Blair wants to monitor all children for signs of criminality.
Tony Blair faced charges of taking a further step towards turning Britain into a "surveillance state" as he set out plans to monitor all children for signs of criminality, to allow police to collect more DNA samples and to expand the use of CCTV cameras.
30-03-07 Sanders Research - read more

Stolen laptop contains details of 11000 children 27-03-2007

 fingerprint Big Brother
in schools?
- Futurelab
"We do agree with everything Leave Them Kids Alone is saying about consulting with parents." Andy O'Brien, managing director of Micro Librarian Systems, (seller of Junior Librarian & Eclipse), 12 March 2007
"No-one should ever install biometrics in a school without consulting with parents." Alasdair Darroch, managing director of Softlink Europe, (seller of Alice & Alice Junior), 14 Mar 2007
 
 
"Education, Education, Education" Tony Blair (1996)    "Consent, Consent, Consent" Concerned parents (2008)  
 
We are campaigning for the widespread use of biometrics in UK schools to be debated in Parliament, strictly regulated &
closely monitored, & statutory requirements for explicit informed parental consent where children's biometrics are taken.
 
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