And a Dales protester has launched a website this week to fight Derbyshire County Council's £232,000 decision to introduce the machines at 22 schools, including Highfields in Matlock and Anthony Gell in Wirksworth.

Council chiefs say the system would remove the need for pupils to carry cash, produce a quicker dinner service and reduce bullying.

But civil liberties campaigner Glyn Harris, from Carsington, said it was a waste of taxpayers' money and a threat to children's human rights.

Mr Harris said: "It seems like overkill and there's quite a lot of concern regarding it, especially with the amount of money being spent, so I've put together this website.

"Some of the claims of companies running this software are not as clear-cut as they have made out.

"There is no reason why fingerprint information cannot be passed on to other people and obviously most schools don't have the funding to hold this information properly," he said.

Mr Harris asked whether parents would need to give permission for their children's prints to be taken, or if they would have to opt out.

But cabinet members for schools Cllr Alan Charles denied the system stored fingerprints and said it was used successfully across Britain.

Cllr Charles said: "Cashless systems are used voluntarily, with parental permission.

"Features of students' fingerprints are translated into numbers which can't be transferred back into a fingerprint."

The county council said the information – which includes pupils' names, year groups, free meal status and photos, if applicable – would be held on a council-run secure server.

Cllr Charles added the system – which will be phased in over three years – would bring faster service and meant pupils receiving free meals could not be identified or stigmatised.

Fingerprint-recognition machines are already used in five Derbyshire school canteens, and in several school libraries in the county.

To view the campaign website, click here

To view the county council's plans in full, click here