From a recent post to the Cambridge No2ID list

"Another aspect of the whole thing, which has received some press
coverage and mentions in the No2ID forums, is the idea of thumbprinting
schoolchildren so they can use the school library. I was horrified to
learn on Monday that my daughter's primary school planned to thumbprint
everyone for a new library system.

"Upon further investigation, it turns out that the biometric part of the
system is an optional add-on, strongly encouraged by central government.
5000+ schools have already hooked up. It seems to me that by using
biometric data for trivial purposes, our children are being conditioned
to accept that authority figures will at some future point expect them
to present their fingerprints on demand. The notification letter we
received from the school was very vague and frankly looked as if it had
been drafted in Whitehall (which it probably was!)

"I have insisted that my daughter is exempted and obviously I shall be
taking the matter further."

and later, from the same person

"My wife and I spent the afternoon handing out flyers in the street
outside my daughter's school.

"After about two minutes a horrified Head Teacher and Deputy Head came
out to see what was going on, which only served to encourage more
parents to take the letters. We thought we would include a little tear
off slip at the bottom, conveniently missing from the school's
original notification letter, so that parents who wished to opt out
could do so!!!

"The response from the other parents was very encouraging. Many had not
realised what was going on, as the letter had been sent out on the last
day of half term, with the biometrics bit tucked away in the middle.

"It turns out that at least one other school in Cambridge tried to
introduce biometrics, but the parents nipped it in the bud. Let's hope
we can do this here as well..."

Here's quite an interesting article in The Guardian:

 http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1742091,00.html