A SIGN OF THE TIMES? NURSERY SCANS PARENTS FINGERPRINTS

NOTE TO SELF: HOW MUCH SECURITY IS TOO MUCH SECURITY?

It's a dangerous world these days with media reports focusing on children who have disappeared seemingly without a trace. This fear was probably one of the main reasons for the daily usage of fingerprint scanners in two nursery schools located in Kent, England, in order to check or verify the identity of parents.

The Springfield Lodge Day Nursery is scanning the prints each time parents drop off their children.

According to the owner of the nursery, the measures were for the "safety and security" of the children, however not everyone sees the move as positive. The charity, Kidscape, which aims to protect children from harm, described the measure as "paranoid and overkill" and gives the wrong message to youngsters.

Kidscape director, Michelle Elliott, provided statistics revealing that in reality of the 11 million children in the UK, on average seven to 10 were abducted and murdered each year.

"But we don't want to give children, particularly young children, the idea that the world is so dangerous that they can't even go to nursery school without being scanned."

Ms Berryman said parents at the nursery were happy with the heightened security measures.
She said it made life a lot easier for parents when dropping off and picking up so that they were not hanging around waiting for their children.

"There is no actual information recorded, only the information that we've already got," she said.

It would be interesting to know how instituting a fingerprint scanner in nursery schools or even kindergarten would go over with North American parents.

Read about Kidscape here: http://www.kidscape.org.uk/