THERE are several points that deserve to be raised about the article "Thumbs down: anger over York schools that fingerprint their five-year-olds" (The Press, January 8).

1) Did the heads of the schools using fingerprint readers work on an "opt-in" basis? In other words, did they assume that parents would not want their children's fingerprints encoded and stored unless the parents said otherwise?

2) Did the heads of the schools carry out a cost-benefit analysis? For example, are the fingerprint readers cheaper and easier to use than the old system?

3) Did the heads of schools carry out a risk analysis for the introduction of this fingerprint-reading system? For example, what are the risks associated with the fingerprint system being stolen from the school?

To the parents of children at these schools who have not opted out: information about your children's fingerprints is now out of your control. Have you been fully informed about the risks associated with this?

Now substitute ID cards in the above. Does anything change?

Richard Paige, Church Road, Osbaldwick, York.


YOUR article raises a number of questions that should be answered.

Within the Child Protection Act, there are restrictions that give people who work with children guidance as to how to treat them. One of which, I believe, is that no child can be photographed without parental consent.

There is nothing in the Act that covers fingerprinting, which leads me to believe that when the Act was prepared, nobody envisaged the need to fingerprint children. I appreciate heads' reasons for doing it, but are they correct within the Act?

AP Cox, Heath Close, Holgate, York.