A FATHER has reacted with fury after discovering his son was fingerprinted at school - without parental consent.

The dad, whose son attends Oaklands School, in Acomb, contacted The Press after we revealed that thousands of York youngsters are being logged in this way on school library systems, inset.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act showed 11 schools in the city are using personal biometric data to identify pupils. But Clifton Green Primary School has already stopped using the system after MEP Godfrey Bloom raised ethical concerns.

Oaklands was not one of the schools revealed in our expos, but it today emerged that they had also been using the controversial system for about two years.

The father, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was concerned that someone hacking into the school's computer could get access to confidential personal information gleaned from the fingerprinting system.

He now plans to raise the issue with York MP Hugh Bayley.

"I think fingerprinting the children is appalling," he said.

"Oaklands have been doing this for two years now and I had no idea. We have to sign consent forms for lots of other things so why not this?

"I don't know what was wrong with the old system which worked for 40 or 50 years. No computer is totally safe and someone could hack in."

But Oaklands head teacher David Ellis, pictured, said the system was introduced to the school 18 months ago, before he took up the post.

"Parents were notified about the change to the system, and as far as I'm aware no parent contacted the school to say that they didn't wish to be included in it. If there are any parents who are concerned about this then I would be happy to discuss it with them.

"The library monitoring system is independent of the school's other ICT systems."

Mr Ellis said the system was very simple, and favoured by pupils because it meant they did not have to carry a library card. I could understand people's concerns if we were using the information for other reasons, but clearly we are not because it's a piece of information held only within the library system."