Proposals to finger print school children

Dear Sir

I refer to your recent correspondence with the Council’s Vice-president, Mr Terry O’Gorman, concerning this issue.

The executive of the Council considered its position in relation to your proposal at its meeting on 9 February, 2010.

Firstly the Council wishes to acknowledge its appreciation of your decision to consult it in relation to this issue. We certainly agree with the view that has been repeatedly expressed by the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Ann Cavoukian, that where possible privacy protective measures should be built into proposed new technology. For this reason we certainly would encourage organisations such as yours to consult privacy and civil liberties bodies about proposals.

However, I have to say to you the Council’s position is that we oppose fingerprinting of school children.

In our view fingerprints represent some of the most privacy sensitive pieces of information about a person. The privacy sensitivity is increased by the fact that they are associated with the criminal justice process.

We would be very concerned about the creation of significant fingerprint databases. Our concerns are twofold. Firstly, we are concerned about the prospect of identity theft. Secondly, whilst we note that your current proposal is that the databases will be erased when the children leave school this is something that of course may change with a stroke of a legislative pen.

In the end, whilst we acknowledge that there may be certain efficiency benefits to your proposal we do not consider that those efficiency benefits outweigh the risks that flow from the collection of this permanent piece of private data about a person.

Once again I thank you for your letter.