"Angus is the only authority in Scotland which is increasing uptake of school meals and, while not all of it is down to the biometric system, we do know that there is a stigma attached to receiving free school meals. But the possibility of bullying is removed here because no one knows who receives free school meals apart from the office staff who credit their accounts.Fingerprint systems that store only an algorithm-generated template rather than an image of a fingerprint pose little-or-no threat to a person's biometric privacy.
On the positive side: for the student, fingerprint biometrics offer increased privacy and safety; the school achieves higher data integrity and increased operational efficiency. These benefits are not simply confined to the schools themselves. All taxpayers have a stake in the efficient use of educational resources.
If recent press is taken as an accurate reflection of the concerns of so-called privacy advocates, they fixate on the security of students' biometric data while unconcerned with the security of the academic, behavioral and medical records kept by schools that present a much more acute privacy risk.
It is incumbent upon adults to be mindful of the privacy implications of all the decisions they make for children. Implementation of template-only fingerprint identification systems can indicate fulfillment, rather than neglect of that duty.
