Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), biometric data, such as facial images, taken in classes is regarded as special data category and its use by Swedish Skelleftea flouts privacy law.
Swedish local authority known as Skelleftea Municipality has been penalized by the Swedish Data Protection Authority (DPA) after it conducted facial recognition (biometrics) trials on some Swedish high-school students. The primary objective of the tests was keeping track of the learners’ attendance.
Biometrics is a technological and scientific authentication method based on biology and used in information assurance (IA).
DPA charged Skelleftea Municipality two hundred thousand (200,000) Swedish Krona, the equivalent of twenty thousand and seven hundred dollars ($20,700).
Biometrics tracks 22 students
Expressly, the trials undertaken by the Swedish local authority entailed twenty-two (22) students being tracked for at least three (3) weeks. The procedure involved detecting the time each student entered a classroom.
The fine imposed on Skelleftea Municipality was the first one to be implemented under GDPR. DPA also asserted that the penalty could have been dire if the trial took a more extended period.
According to Skelleftea Municipality, the use of facial recognition technology in schools was instrumental in speeding up attendance reports. Biometric methods could lessen the nearly seventeen thousand (17,000) hours spent by teachers in annually reporting students’ attendance.
Jorgen Malm, a Skelleftea Municipality member, stipulates that facial recognition is a fairly safe technology.
According to ComputerSweden, a technology magazine, the Swedish administration was prompted to investigate facial recognition usage in schools after media coverage of Anderstorp’s High School’s trials.
Biometrics conducted with the agreement of parents
DPA also indicated that parents had consented for their children to be monitored. Nevertheless, it felt that this not a sufficiently legitimate reason for the collection of such subtle individual information.
As a result, DPA found Skelleftea Municipality to have flouted the privacy law by processing delicate biometric data.
The protection of personal data is a fundamental attribute in the present age where technological innovations are reigning supreme. As a result, various crimes, such as data breach and hacking, have emerged.
For instance, Bismarck public schools recently became victims of a data breach. On the other hand, data security can be enhanced by adhering to several WIFI safety tips.
