Skelleftea Anderstorp school illegally tracks students using facial recognition

Sweden's Data Protection Authority fined the Skelleftea municipality 200,000 Swedish Krona for illegally tracking 22 students over three weeks and detecting when each pupil entered a classroom.

According to Swedish state broadcaster SVT Nyheter, Skelleftea municipality said they thought facial recognition technology would save teachers 17,280 hours a year reporting student attendance.

The regulator ruled that although the school had secured parents' consent to monitor the students, it felt it was a legally disproportionate reason to collect such sensitive personal data, and that students could be expected to have a sense of privacy when they entered a classroom.

The DPA also said the managers of the project had failed to do a proper impact assessment, which should have led to consulting the authority due to the risks involved. 

Legal, regulatory 👩🏼‍⚖️

• Swedish Data Protection Authority (2019). Supervision pursuant to the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – facial recognition used to monitor the attendance of students (pdf)

• European Data Protection Board (2019). Facial recognition in school renders Sweden’s first GDPR fine

News, commentary, analysis 🗞️

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49489154

• https://www.telecompaper.com/news/tieto-trials-school-class-registration-using-tags-apps-and-facial-recognition-in-swedish-school--1276299

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2019/10/11/a-lesson-on-facial-recognition-privacy-and-gdpr-from-the-far-north/

• https://computersweden.idg.se/2.2683/1.715020/ansiktsigenkanning-skola-datainspektionen?

• https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/skolans-ovanliga-test-registrerar-elevernas-narvaro-med-kamera

• https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-11/europe-shouldn-t-use-security-to-justify-facial-recognition