Hm, you’re right. Sorry about that.
I read a little while ago that students were getting cheek swabs too. I’ll see if i can find a source.
EDIT:
I can’t find anything mentioning DNA testing of students in the UK. Maybe I’m crazy. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
It looks like in this case, the regulation is specifically intended to address
quote information about the skin pattern and other physical characteristics or features of a person’s fingers or palms,
(b) information about the features of an iris or any other part of the eye, and
© information about a person’s voice or handwriting.[/quote] Source.
And I guess that fingerprint, eye, and voice ID could each be used for ID verification for taking out library books, opening lockers, et cetera.
Still creepy though, if you ask me.
Also: the regulation states that the information collected is collected for use with a biometric recognition system, but is very broad about the definition of a biometric recognition system. It sounds like (as far as the bounds of this regulation go) the data collected may be used by any automated system which can use that data to verify ID. It doesn’t limit it to school use or anything, as far as I can tell.
