Fingerprinting Children

Now, as some of you will know, I'm not a "children" kind of person. If I had my way, there'd be a lot less children around. However, I'm not allowed to be in charge of policy decisions regarding education and capital punishment (and no, I don't mean corporal punishment). That said, the libertarian in me does question the following news item:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/07/kiddyprinting_allowed/

Which, looking ahead, would handily become a database of everybody's fingerprints in a few years time. So all you (as the Government) would need to do, is sneak through a Bill saying that all education records are the property of the Government and can be used for whatever purposes, and bingo, you've completely circumvented any and all opposition to a National Identity Scheme.

Let's look at the background to this.

So, WITHOUT the permission of the parent, schools can keep a database of children's fingerprints. Which suggests that children (as young as 5) are now responsible enough to make their own decisions on matters such as this. Anyone now asking someone else's child if they want to go to the cinema/come and see some puppies will be able to say "well the child was mature enough to understand what I was asking, it's less complicated than understanding civil liberties" as a defence. But this isn't really about paedophiles.

It is yet another erosion of civil liberties in this country. Not content with being able to track our cars across the country, watch us on CCTV, and how much rubbish we put in our bins the Government now have the opportunity to fingerprint the entire population.

And their argument back to us? "If you've got nothing to hide there's nothing to be afraid of". Well the thing I'm afraid of IS the Government.