Big Brother style fingerprint scanners are to be used by schoolgirls to pay for their lunch.

Pupils at Nonsuch High School for Girls will have their biometric data taken by machines to confirm payment for school lunches instead of using cash.

Currently Nonsuch, one of the UK’s highest rated schools, uses a “credit card” scheme to pay for lunches which headmistress Genefer Espejo described as “inconvenient”.

Parents and lobby groups said taking fingerprints would threaten students’ privacy and criticised the school’s ethics.

Lib Dem schools spokeswoman Baroness Joan Walmsley said in 2007 even communist China had banned the practice of using fingerprint scanners on children “as being too intrusive and an infringement of children's rights”.

Anteon UK, the company behind the VeriCool fingerprint system, has an American arm which runs training courses for the US military.

Dave Coleman, 55, of Worcester Park, a school governance support officer, whose daughter attends Nonsuch, said it was “a step too far”.

He said: “It’s like Big Brother. I am not against biometrics and data collection, but I think its use is inappropriate on children.

“Schools are quite ethical places, but Nonsuch’s involvement with Anteon makes me feel very uncomfortable.

“The governing body must have known about this. I’m at a loss to understand where their moral compass was pointing.”

David Clouter, founder of campaign group Leave Them Kids Alone, said the system caused children to accept a growing surveillance society.

NO2ID general secretary Guy Herbert said it was dangerous and increased the risk of identity theft.

He said: “After all, unlike a bank account, a fingerprint once lost or stolen cannot be replaced with a new one for the owner’s use.”

The school has not responded to questions from the Sutton Guardian, but in a letter to parents Nonsuch chair of governors Donna Evans said the governing body was satisfied “with the assurance from VeriCool, that the system does not involve storing actual fingerprints and that the school’s data security arrangements are robust and sufficient to ensure that all stored data is secure”. The VeriCool system will begin at Nonsuch in the autumn term.

Government guidelines state schools must ask for parental permission to take biometric data.

Amanda Jackson a spokesman for Anteon said: “The technology used in VeriCool does not capture an image of a fingerprint: it scans the fingertip and locates a number of points which are converted into a numerical string (algorithm).”

She said benfits included preventing “bullying by ensuring students no longer need to carry cash to school”.

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