Thumbs Down
There are many reasons to recoil from using biometrics in schools: There are civil rights questions, issues surrounding security and identity theft, reliability, consent, abuse and access. In my opinion, each of these are sufficient to give pause before introducing, or in CSG Infants’ School’s case, continuing the use of a biometric identity system.
I’m not going to expand on these issues on these pages, as I want to consider one other area without distracting from it. It is a simple and pragmatic analysis of the costs of running the system against the educational and administrative advantages.
It is important to make a distinction between the Micro Librarian System and the unnecessary optional extra biometric module (called ‘IdentiKit’ by the manufacturer).
I have no complaints about the Junior Librarian System. It functions as a database management solution, linking children to books and keeps records about who has read what. It performs the basic tasks of a librarian very well and would seem to have a clear and demonstrable educational benefit and represent an administrative convenience.
The Benefits of the Biometrics Module
The MLS website carries a number of testimonials from schools and makes a number of claims that the biometrics system confers educational benefits. No evidence is offered for these claims and no supporting literature is cited. You are being asked to take them at their word and to trust the company’s salesmen to present unbiased information. Can you trust this company to do that? Any more than you can trust any salesman to give you a balanced assessment of the product that their bonus relies upon? Are there any other instances of Micro Librarian Systems misleading the school’s staff in the last couple of weeks? [1].
Even from a common sense point of view, by what process does scanning a thumb improve literacy more than the other available methods of accessing the system, that might require you to read?
While there would seem to be a common sense conclusion that the biometrics module adds no educational benefit, the unsupported and anecdotal claims from the company remain. Yet on a closer consideration it is clear that the apparent educational benefits mentioned are all of the Library database and independent of the inclusion of the biometrics module. Of itself, it adds nothing.
In fact, when asked to investigate Dr Sandra Leaton Gray, Director of Studies, Sociology of Education from Homerton College, Cambridge reached the conclusion that, "I have not been able to find a single piece of published research which suggests that the use of biometrics in schools promotes healthy eating or improves reading skills amongst children.... There is absolutely no evidence for such claims."
Which is a clear and unequivocal statement from an impartial analysis.
MLS makes administrative claims, too. While It is my opinion that the administrative needs of the school are secondary to the educational needs of the children, I should address those claims. They say the biometrics module means:
No more lost or damaged reader cards!
No more lending of ID cards between borrowers!
No more bar codes being washed or tumble dried!
...and implies administrative time saved as a result.
To which I say the first and third of these reasons are the same, and all relate to slight administrative short-term conveniences for the school. The risk of a lost card is far less serious and less inconvenient than the risk of lost biometric data. And each of these reasons in themselves offer educational opportunities relating to showing children the value of remembering their card or PIN. None of these alleged advantages relates to the primary alternative, which comes as standard with MLS which is to keep in the library a laminated sheet of paper with the children’s names and a bar code that can be scanned by the librarian.
As you can see, there are no genuine additional benefits from the biometrics module to justify the costs.
The Costs of the Biometric Module
The indirect costs expose the school for decades and are associated with things such as compensation claims from banks in the event of identity fraud and theft. The company has always been careful to place the liability for the outcomes of system abuse and data theft with the school. The average amount that identity theft costs each victim is £30,727.[2] For a school of 150, that represents potential compensation claims of £4.6 million for each occasion the database is stolen.
The direct costs, except those of purchase, include annual data removal and certification (£300), periodic removal and certification (£300), as required by the information commissioner [9th Feb 2007] Also, computer maintenance, and servicing, eventual rebuilding of the database after a breakdown of the computer. Also included at this time is the replacement computer, a company rep to reinstall and initialise the system on the new computer. Any such breakdown, on an unbacked up system such as the one running at our school would also mean the loss of all the information that represents the educational benefits of the basic system!
So we have high and ongoing costs associated with an optional extra, that has no benefit in and of itself, but that also jeopardizes the data that does have an educational benefit. Can we really not think of a better way of spending an estimated £ 584.00 each year[3].
Even without regard for the civil rights questions, the issues surrounding security and identity theft, system reliability, disregard for parental consent, risk of data abuse and the breadth of people and organisations who can demand access to the system, I submit that on a simple cost benefit analysis, the school should decide against continuation of the biometrics module.
There are many cost associated with it.
There is no demonstrable benefit.
The money could be better spent elsewhere.
Should the committee fail to agree with this eminently rational analysis, I am at its disposal to come and discuss this and all other aspects of biometrics in schools.
Simple: Avoid any of the risks and save the money associated with managing the biometrics module. Keep all the data regarding the book borrowing and usage, and the educational benefits it represents. Save all the staff and volunteer time that will otherwise be spent rebuilding the database when the un-backed up computer storing it fails.
Decide not to use the unnecessary biometric aspect of the library system- use one of the alternative systems that are already in place.
Footnote 1
After I contacted Mrs Peal at the start of this term she sought reassurance from the company about the fingerprint data that is stored. They told her that the fingerprint isn’t stored on the computer, just a number. They state that it is not possible to reconstruct a fingerrprint from the number. Of course, everything on a computer is just a number, so technically they are correct on that point. However it is enormously misleading: The digital photos you have stored on your computer are stored as numbers, but they are, for all intents and purposes, pictures. The computer reconstructs them from the number using a known protocol (probably JPEG) so they appear each time as a visual representation of the scene as it was when you opened the shutter. In the same way the biometrics computer uses the standard protocols M1/02-0142, INCITS398 or NISTIR6529 to encode the fingerprint data and the same protocols offer the solution to reconstructing the image. To say the fingerrpint isn’t stored on the computer, just a number is misleading. To say it cannot be reconstructed is an unqualified falsehood.
Now tell me, if the company is saying such things to Mrs Peal, can we trust what their salesmen said when they were chasing their commission?
Footnote 2
Fraud cost figures based on the 2005 averages published by CIFAS, “The UK’s Fraud Prevention Service”
Footnote 3
Annual cost based on 10 year cost divided by ten:
Initial Cost of Module. £ ?
Annual Costs.
£ ? Some schools pay annual
subscription.
£ 300 PA Data removal and
certification.
Costs each 5 years.
£ 400 to replace PC with secure
specifications for hardware.
£ 800 One day of company technician.
£ 220 40 man hours at minimum wage
to restore database onto new
computer.
Also lost class time for children.
£ ?
£ ?
£ 3000
£ 800
£ 1600
£ 440
Total
£ 5840+
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There are many reasons to recoil from biometrics in schools
There are civil rights questions, issues surrounding security and identity theft, reliability, consent, data abuse, data access, cost and more. In my opinion, each of these are sufficient to give pause before introducing or continuing the use of a biometric identity system.
