City of Portsmouth Girls' School, Mill Rythe Juniors in Hayling Island and Lyndhurst Juniors in North End, Portsmouth, are using the technology to use information from children's fingerprints instead of library cards.

Portsmouth Grammar School (PGS) has also trialled the scheme in its dining hall since January using three year groups of its junior school. Bosses at the independent school say the technology is so efficient and cost-saving that they plan to introduce it to all its year groups to be used for the library and dining hall.

But some campaigners are unhappy about children possibly being fingerprinted without parental consent. Former Brune Park school governor and UKIP candidate, John Bowles, said: 'It's sinister. Fingerprints are associated with criminals and I wouldn't want that association with my child.'

But bosses at all four schools were quick to allay parents' fears, saying key point information from a fingerprint scan cannot be turned back to create a fingerprint image as seen on police records.