Nine schools in Scotland today began using facial recognition on students to speed up lunch time.
The system, implemented today at sites in North Ayrshire, Scotland, will allow schools to collect payments from children using facial recognition.
It is said to expedite transactions and reduce queues and is considered a cleaner approach than card payments and fingerprints in the post-Covid world.
However, parents and campaigners have expressed concerns about children’s privacy, and believe that students have not been properly warned about the potential dangers of facial recognition.
People on Twitter reacted to the news.
@NckDrk wrote: ‘It is perfectly normal and logical to spend money on facial recognition in schools, if a child steals food, to spend that money on giving children free school meals’
The system, which has been implemented in nine schools in North Ayrshire, Scotland, will allow schools to collect payments from children using facial recognition (file image)
Parent Nick Payne said: ‘My Kids’ uses a fingerprint ID system for school canteen payments, which works fine and is nowhere near as scary.
So why can’t they do this instead of going for facial recognition – which has significant problems even with non-white faces?’
Caroline Kenyon said: ‘Surely we need air filtration units in schools, not facial recognition? The priorities of this government are completely opposite.
Despite the concerns, North Ayrshire Council says that 97% of children or their parents agreed to the use of facial recognition in schools.
Appreciating the benefits, David Swanston, Managing Director of CRB Cunningham – the company providing the system – said financial Times: ‘This is by far the fastest way to recognize someone.
Parents and campaigners have expressed concerns about children’s privacy, and believe that students have not been properly warned about the potential dangers of facial recognition.
‘You have about 25 minutes to serve potentially 1,000 pupils in a secondary school. So we need to move fast at the point of sale.
England and Wales’s Biometrics Commissioner Fraser Simpson says if there is a less intrusive way to pay for children’s lunches, that method should be used instead, sky News informed of.
In New York, schools are banned from using technology until at least July 2022 because technology often misidentifies women and people of color, increasing the risk discrimination for people in those groups.
Responding to developments in Ayrshire, campaigners are concerned that the technology exposes people to potential arrest without a proper cause.
Silky Carlo, head of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, told MailOnline: ‘No child should go through a border style identity check just to get a school meal.
‘We should live in a democracy, not a security state. This is highly sensitive, personal data that children should be taught to protect, not avoid.
‘This biometrics company has declined to disclose with whom children’s personal information may be shared and there are some red flags here for us.’
She continued: ‘Facial recognition technology is generally plagued with inaccuracy, especially for women and people of color, and we are extremely concerned about how this aggressive and discriminatory system will affect children.
‘We have written to several schools that are using this facial recognition system to address our legal concerns and urge them to stop immediately.’
In the UK, police have been using facial recognition since 2015 to prevent and detect crime by helping officers find wanted criminals.
The system has been used to identify individuals in a crowd in a variety of environments, from e-gates at airports to Notting Hill carnivals.