GromBlog

I've just heard from my friend Imran that his 5 year old nephew has been told by his school that he's to be fingerprinted. Yep, that's fingerprinting a 5 year old child for a library card! The letter from the school says that this is fine as the system is not networked and complies with the Data Protection Act. As if that matters one jot. My children will be starting school in the next few years & I've already told my wife to prepare for a battle when we come across this situation - no child of mine is ever going to be brought up to accept that's it's normal to give away their fingerprints or any other form of identity regardless of the supposed innocence of the purpose. I'm very sympathetic of Taz's dilemma - no child wants to be the odd one out and earmarked as different but it's hard to stand for principles when most people don't understand the implications or are willing to give away so much of their identity freely. I'd suggest that Taz tries to get some advice from the net - a great resource is this pdf on how to win arguements about identity cards much of which is applicable here. Good luck Taz!
*Edit* Another couple of very useful resources