Lesley Riddoch: Making a meal of biometric 'threat'

Published on Friday 31 December 2010 16:44

It's fast and it's fair. It can't be stolen or faked. It saves cash for schools and saves face for deprived kids. So why the outcry by prominent Scots over the use of fingerprint recognition instead of cash to pay for school meals?

Last week Scottish Lib Dem justice spokesman Robert Brown revealed that 68 schools across Scotland have introduced biometric systems which scan palms or fingerprints for access to libraries and canteens. For some reason this worries the former deputy minister for education and human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar who says: "This is the introduction of Big Brother by the back door."

Really?

"Liberal Democrats in government scrapped the invidious plans for ID cards," says Mr Brown. "We really don't want to see this coming in through the back door through Scottish classrooms."

Well, it's too late.

Brechin High School is about to celebrate a decade of fingerprint recognition. The kit was introduced to the school's library in 2001 as part of a new digital administration system. Borrowing by boys increased and lost cards were no longer a time-consuming problem for staff. So in 2007 the fingerprint kit was installed in canteens across the council's eight secondary schools.

Brechin High has had no problems, pupils seem to like it and last week's publicity prompted only one local opponent into print.

The cashless system in Angus has stopped kids being bullied for dinner money, stopped kids being stigmatised for handing over free school meal vouchers and stopped dinner ladies spending so much time at tills. And crucially - for an overweight, junk-diet nation - it has stopped lunch money being spent at the chippie.

Yes, I suppose that much progress from one piece of technology is scary. Though not half as scary as one MSP setting a biometric hare running without managing to check the facts.

The government information that most alarmed Robert Brown was news that a secondary school in West Lothian has installed a biometric palm-pad system for primary school children to gain temporary access to toilets.

Yes, read that sentence again slowly.

It doesn't quite make sense, does it?

But Mr Brown duly issued a press release warning: "If finger or palm prints of children as young as four got into the wrong hands, it could have significant consequences."

In fact, this worrying "palm-pad biometric device" is a mechanical big button with a push-pad - the kind installed across Scotland to open doors automatically for disabled access.

Confusingly - for some - it does have a picture of a hand on it.It allows some littler Low Port Primary kids to access toilets at neighbouring Deans Community High during repairs.

Was that too hard for someone to check?

Equally, Angus Council point out that no fingerprint images are stored by it. Its fingerprint scan creates a mathematical template like an identity number. This data is encrypted and cannot be used in any other database. It's impossible to recreate an image of the original scanned finger.

Still, let's not the facts get in the way of a good panic.

It's far easier to get the public all hot and bothered about fingerprints. Centuries of crime novels, decades of detective films and hours of NCIS on TV have forever welded fingerprints in the public imagination to the seamy world of crime.

Iris-recognition technology too was halted in its tracks by a film. In Minority Report the character played by Tom Cruise is identified by state-controlled cameras and ends up replacing his own eyeballs to avoid recognition.

Memorably scary big screen imagery is in danger of combining with political scaremongering and a deep-seated mistrust of government to create a climate of anti-technology hysteria in Scotland.

The same people who worry about the security of fingerprint recognition maintain they can memorise a plethora of pin numbers, security ID codes, password and usernames. In fact most of us carry them around in easily mislaid handbags or jacket pockets.

The same people who worry about fingerprint recognition don't worry that Facebook tagging has already included their faces in an enormous, informal, worldwide database.

Of course, several virtual wrongs don't make a single actual right.

Biometric technology has drawbacks. A PIN number is a precise match, a biometric measurement is an exercise in probability because physical features change slightly over time.

Perhaps the Lib Dems also worry that children will become so used to giving fingerprints at school, they won't oppose any future government which wants to resurrect the idea of national ID cards. Perhaps.

My hope is that they grow up expecting technology to deliver accessible, joined-up systems of government.

But has anyone thought of asking the kids?

Angus Council reports high levels of pupil and parent satisfaction - and significantly higher levels of school meal consumption. The rural council is one of very few in Scotland to coax kids away from the chippies, takeaways and Tescos.

Of course that's not just down to technology. Pupils plan menus and ingredients are sourced locally, so kids know the people and processes involved in putting food on their plates.

Ironically, that's precisely what Lib Dem rural affairs spokesman Jim Hume was calling for the day after Robert Brown captured the headlines with the (largely non-existent) "biometric threat".

So here's a wee suggestion to Messrs Brown and Hume: go and see the future in sunny Brechin.Talk to the pupils - if they want to talk to you - about the technology they've used for a decade and the local food they've been eating for years. And stop worrying.

"Old" knowledge about human behaviour is never redundant. It must be reasserted every time technology advances otherwise we end up with technology-phobic oldies and conversation-phobic youngsters.

It's understandable that recession, change and uncertainty should make people jumpy. But let's not jump so easily to the conclusion that technology is our enemy.

It's not too late for Lib Dems to make another New Year's resolution.

Try to get out more.