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A faculty has been reprimanded by the information safety regulator after utilizing facial recognition know-how (FRT) to take cashless canteen funds from pupils.
The Data Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO) mentioned Chelmer Valley Excessive College, in Chelmsford, Essex, broke the regulation when it “failed” to finish an information safety affect evaluation (DPIA) earlier than beginning to use the know-how.
The secondary faculty, which has round 1,200 pupils aged 11-18, had not correctly obtained clear permission to course of the kids’s biometric information and college students had been unable to “train their rights and freedoms”.
In March final yr, the college started utilizing the know-how to take cashless canteen funds, earlier than an evaluation was product of the dangers to the kids’s info.
Lynne Currie, head of privateness innovation on the ICO, mentioned: “Dealing with folks’s info appropriately in a college canteen surroundings is as essential because the dealing with of the meals itself.
“We count on all organisations to hold out the mandatory assessments when deploying a brand new know-how to mitigate any information safety dangers and guarantee their compliance with information safety legal guidelines.
“We’ve taken motion towards this faculty to indicate introducing measures akin to FRT shouldn’t be taken flippantly, significantly when it entails youngsters.
“We don’t need this to discourage different colleges from embracing new applied sciences. However this have to be achieved appropriately with information safety on the forefront, championing belief, defending youngsters’s privateness and safeguarding their rights.”
The reprimand comes after the ICO instructed North Ayrshire Council final yr that its use of FRT to take canteen funds in 9 colleges was “possible” to have infringed information safety regulation.
Considerations had been raised when FRT was launched in North Ayrshire colleges in 2021 as a part of a alternative of its present cashless catering system.
The info watchdog additionally discovered that Chelmer Valley Excessive College failed to hunt opinions from its information safety officer, or seek the advice of with dad and mom and college students, earlier than implementing the know-how.
In March final yr, a letter was despatched to folks with a slip for them to return if they didn’t need their baby to take part in FRT, the ICO mentioned.
Till November final yr, the ICO warned that the college had been wrongly counting on “assumed consent” for facial recognition – besides the place dad and mom or carers had opted youngsters out of the system.
The info safety regulator additionally famous that almost all college students would have been sufficiently old to supply their very own consent, so the parental opt-out disadvantaged college students of the flexibility to train their rights.
The reprimand mentioned: “Chelmer Valley Excessive College has subsequently failed to finish a DPIA the place they had been legally required to take action.
“This failing meant that no prior evaluation was product of the dangers to information topics, no consideration was given to lawfully managing consent, and college students on the faculty had been then left unable to correctly train their rights and freedoms.”
The varsity supplied a DPIA to the information watchdog in January this yr, and it begun acquiring specific opt-in consent from college students in November final yr.
Ms Currie added: “A DPIA is required by regulation – it’s not a tick-box train.
“It’s an important instrument that protects the rights of customers, offers accountability and encourages organisations to consider information safety initially of a undertaking.”
A spokesperson for Chelmer Valley Excessive College mentioned: “We settle for the report’s suggestions and took motion final yr to make sure correct consent is gained when college students use the cashless canteen. This contains having the selection to choose in or out as desired.”
