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Title: UK Education chiefs keep database on parent's hair, height and build. Get Real! Post by: Jonnie Goodboy on January 27, 2011, 06:58:36 am Xource NO2ID: http://www.no2id.net/newsblog/ January 25th, 2011 at 8:30 am by andrew James Slack writes in the Daily Mail: Town hall bosses are compiling secret ‘Big Brother’ databases on the appearance of schoolchildren’s parents. Education officials say they are keeping the sensitive information in case they ever want to identify a parent for legal action. Forms are being given to staff asking them to comment on height, hair, and build, which involves assumptions on whether a parent should be considered overweight or untidy. Last night James Welch, legal director of human rights campaign group Liberty, said: ‘Councils should not be making secret notes about innocent parents. What on earth has it got to do with getting kids to school?’ The form is described as a ‘parent identification form’. A whistleblower said it was being circulated by the ‘school attendance improvement service’ at Leicestershire County Council. [...] It is the latest in a series of alarming ‘Big Brother’ schemes launched by schools. Last year, a council admitted spying on a family using anti-terror laws to find out if they were really living in a school catchment area. In a separate incident, cameras were installed in toilets at a Teesside school to deter vandalism, graffiti and bad behaviour and it emerged that one in three secondary schools was forcing children to swipe fingerprints just to register in class or take out library books. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350240/Schools-secret-reports-Education-chiefs-database-parents-looks.html#ixzz1CEvzSFGs |