Never mind abduction by strangers; never mind largely-illusory perverts tracking jailbait; never mind fraudulent free school dinners; never mind lost library books; never mind whether or not this particular story is merely Daily Mail hysteria.

The issue, as Andy Taylor points out above, is one of the increasing (careless or sinister depending on your viewpoint) over-use of surveillance.

Read that Andre Bacard quote again - "If I wanted to create a surveillance society, I would start by creating dossiers on kindergarten children so that the next generation could not comprehend a world without surveillance."

We are conditioning children (well, not just children actually) to accept intrusion into every aspect of daily life - everything from tagging to RFID, CCTV on every corner to ID cards, numberplate recognition to 28 days' detention without charge. We are sleepwalking into a police state and fingerprinting children is a symptom of that.

The only thing Orwell got wrong in 1984 was the date. Winston Smith's world wasn't with us until c2010