Two stories I saw this week made me really glad my own school/uni days are behind me. The library, that place for quiet study has turned into a battleground between students and authority.

Firstly there's the news that a group of MPs have started investigating the growing use of biometric scanners and fingerprinting in UK schools to record registration, book loans and even canteen use.

It seems hundreds of schools are using these systems, and without parents' permission, to store pupils fingerprints or scans along with their personal details in school databases.

Those same databases that the government may eventually have access to if plans for the national children’s' database get the go-ahead.

Now, MPs who have supported parents protesting against their children being fingerprinted without their agreement are also raising questions about where the money has come from for schools to buy the biometric scanners.

According to a story on The Register, Sarah Teather, Lib Dem shadow education secretary, has asked the government whether the cash has come out of the e-learning pot, which is meant to be spent on books and learning resources for schools. While Conservative shadow schools minister Nick Gibb has written to the schools Minister Jim Knight raising concerns the issue of school fingerprinting.

But can someone explain to me why on earth any school would want to fingerprint kids before letting them borrow a library book? They've already got address, name, photo, and dozens of other way to identify the potential book thief - aside from the kid's teacher actually knowing who he/she is.

What extra layer of security against a runaway book does having the borrower's fingerprint give? Or is it just quicker to dab a thumbprint than typing a name into a computer or handwriting it onto a library card?

Talk about crime prevention overkill.

As in America, where it seems the quickest way to get a student to leave the library is for three police officers to torture him with a Taser gun.

The video of the incident, recorded by a fellow student at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), is in sweeble's video playlist. Have a look, as the mother of a student the same sort of age I could barely watch it.

According to the student newspaper, The Daily Bruin, officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab in an attempt to get him to leave the building. He had been unable to produce a library ID card during a random night-time check and initially refused to leave when asked by staff - so they called the university's own police team in to remove him. (Seems America's big campuses employ their own police guards)

The incident, which actually happened last November, attracted a massive reaction following the release of the video on YouTube.

The student is Mostafa Tabatabainejad and last week he filed a civil rights lawsuit against UCLA and university police.

Anyone want to put bets on how long before something similar happens in a UK university - or school - and how likely it is that the Taser victim will also have an Asian or Arabic name?