Guidance

Protection of children’s biometric information in schools

Guidance for schools, sixth-form colleges, 16 to 19 academies and further education institutions wishing to use automated biometric recognition systems.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 13 December 2012
• Last updated: 17 June 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 17 June 2026

     Updated 'Protection of biometric data of children in schools and colleges'.

  2. 20 July 2022

     Updated to reflect changes in the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR, provide an oversight of relevant legislation when processing pupil’s/student's sensitive data and give more detail about the responsibilities schools and colleges have as data controllers when using biometric technology.

  3. 22 March 2018

     Updated guidance to extend use of biometric data to further education colleges.

  4. 13 December 2012

     First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Protection of biometric information of children in schools

PDF, 470 KB, 20 pages

Details

This guidance sets out the legal duties of schools and colleges that wish to use pupils’ biometric information with automated biometric recognition systems.