Children in Britain are having their fingerprints taken at what some parents believe is an alarming rate.
Over the past four years, more than 700,000 schoolchildren aged three to 11 have been fingerprinted and photographed as part of the Junior Librarian scheme. More than 3,500 schools have signed up and new schools are joining at a rate of 20 a week. Many of them do not even seek parental consent before fingerprinting children.
Junior Librarian is the brainchild of Micro Librarian Systems. The child presses his or her thumb on to a scanner; the machine takes a reading, converts it into a unique number, and stores the child's information.
This means children no longer have to carry around (and lose) library cards. Instead they stick their thumb in a scanning machine that records which books they've borrowed. More on The First Post