19-08-2006, 06:45 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Administrator
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Long Ashton, Bristol
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UKIP Forces Climbdown on Fingerprinting of Schoolchildren
http://www.ukip.org/ukip_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=2442
Quote:
Under nationwide pressure from UK Independence Party MEPs, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) have agreed that no child can be digitally fingerprinted without parental consent. "At last the education authorities have seen sense", said Dr. John Whittaker today (18.6.06).
According to DfES spokeswoman, Jill Chesworth, schools, "have the responsibility for informing parents and getting consent". Until yesterday, schools were fingerprinting children as young as 5 without even informing their parents.
David Clouter, who runs the campaign group 'Leave Them Kids Alone' (LTKA), which has been campaigning on this issue, said: "This is the first time since the program of fingerprinting schoolchildren started that the Government has conceded that parental consent is required".
Dr Whittaker, MEP for the North West Counties, continued: "This is a major breakthrough, but in itself, it is not enough. We now demand that those thousands of schools that have already fingerprinted the children in their care get retrospective consent from parents. Those parents who refuse such consent must be within their rights to demand that the digital biometric information held by the schools about their children be destroyed".
He went on: "The suggestion from the Ministry that the schools are competent to decide on whether a child is "mature enough to decide for themselves", cannot be allowed to stand. We are talking about primary school children here.
“A child is an individual, not a number or a digital fingerprint and schools must remember that."
Notes to editors
The DfES statement can be read here,
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0...name_page.html
The LTKA website can be found here.
http://www.leavethemkidsalone.com/
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