"A school has provoked uproar after taking children's fingerprints without permission
from their parents.
Pupils were 'frogmarched' to be fingerprinted so they could use touch screens in the canteen to have money deducted from their account, thereby speeding up lunch queues.
Capital City Academy in Brent, north London, was later forced to apologise and wiped all prints it obtained before asking for consent.
It also introduced an opt-out for parents uncomfortable with the technology, allowing pupils to enter a four-digit pin code instead of scanning their print.
The revelation comes as teachers today warned schools are routinely taking children's fingerprints without permission from their parents.
As many as 3,500 schools take biometric data from pupils to speed up basic administration such as buying canteen lunches or borrowing library books.
