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Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

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Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#111

Post by kjar »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #86
moksly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in public digitalisation in Denmark, and I can’t think of a single reason of why you would ever even want this. What’s the use case? Automatic student registration? If it is, and I can certainly imagine some HR consultant going “weeeeeell we can squeeze five minutes of extra education in if we remove this teacher-student interaction of registration, that’s a gazillion hours of extra education a year!”. I know…

I am wondering if there was some private company involved that provided incentives perhaps. I know an IT consulting company was involved with the design but I don't know their relationship.

I’d wager yes firmly, a privacy invasive technology does not just fall from the sky. Salespeople are pimping it hard, and the world incrementally becomes more like a dystopian hellscape

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#112

Post by ggreer »

tastroder wrote: post #103
ggreer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not due to larger industry trends. The paper shows that startups in the US got more funding in the same time period, including early stage startups. I remember warning about this when GDPR was being considered. People said it wasn't a concern. Later in 2018 I linked to a draft whitepaper that showed a decline in funding for EU startups. People replied that it was a statistical fluke and that we needed more time…

Okay, let's say there is enough data and you are absolutely correct. How does that invalidate the "Even if it did, the trade-offs are worth it." response? The US-EU funding disparity was always there, in my book this leads to less people copying ethically dubious startup patterns from their US counterparts. If GDPR is the sole reason for the decline... doesn't the benefit of the population, of quite a few countries,…

The EU doesn't prevent the "bad" startups from existing. They just prevent them from starting in the EU, which means the EU misses out on a lot of the potential upside.

Companies like Microsoft, Google, Uber, Facebook, and PayPal started in the US, but they eventually expanded to the rest of the world. Since those companies weren't founded in the EU, EU workers missed out on being early employees. That means those company cultures are far more American than they otherwise would be. The EU missed out on having those companies headquartered in Europe where they'd create more jobs, more wealth, and more profits that could be taxed. Having them headquartered in the EU would also make those companies easier to influence.

It's hard to quantify exactly how much these things matter, but I think the long term cost is far higher than the consumer benefits of GDPR.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#113

Post by m0xte »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #86
moksly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in public digitalisation in Denmark, and I can’t think of a single reason of why you would ever even want this. What’s the use case? Automatic student registration? If it is, and I can certainly imagine some HR consultant going “weeeeeell we can squeeze five minutes of extra education in if we remove this teacher-student interaction of registration, that’s a gazillion hours of extra education a year!”. I know…

I am wondering if there was some private company involved that provided incentives perhaps. I know an IT consulting company was involved with the design but I don't know their relationship.

That’s likely. School IT is fraught with cash back handers and lies at least here in the UK.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#114

Post by xxs »

tapland wrote: post #6
jdietrich wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR doesn't specify what you can't do with personal data, it specifies what you can do. Personal data is private by default; you can only use my data if it is explicitly lawful for you to do so. If you're not absolutely sure that what you're doing is in line with the GDPR, you shouldn't do it. That's by design, not by accident. The GDPR's fundamental principles are set out in article 5. You should collect the le…

Afaik the ruling also stated that parents abd children dont have a resonable ability to consent towards a school.

It's covered by recital 43 which deals with public institutions and power imbalance.

There is no practical way for a student (or their parents) to say no, given the circumstances.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#115

Post by Zenst »

smooc wrote: post #82
Zenst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which results in the same dataset. Same with mobile phones. But that's ok as long as you obfuscate the data too give the illusion of privacy. So You could have a tracking on a map of a dot moving, but as soon as you associate that dot with a person in the same dataset - that causes dramalama. But you can have that dot associated with a person in a separate dataset held by somebody else and skirt around the fact that…

No it doesn't. In no way an RFID token is equal to biometrical information. I can throw away the token, choose not to have it on me etc. The dataset you are talking about is not just in/out but is a lot more comprehensive than that.

SOrry if my point was not clear enough.

I did not say RFID or a mobile phone is biometric information!

I was saying that such datasets can be matched up to another dataset that holds individual information and as long as those datasets are seperated in the right way, you can skirt around this whole area and still have the same problem.

But people seem happy to allow that.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#116

Post by Zenst »

goodcanadian wrote: post #78
Zenst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Google's et all EULA cater for this as fairly sure many childrens phones track them and fall foul of this. Oyster cards in London, your journeys are tracked, consent not asked for. Let alone giving special privilege for children. Then the whole aspect of under-age (children) commiting crime and evidence. A smart lawyer could abuse the whole aspect to squash any evidence that placed them at a scene of a crime as…

Basically - if a school can't rely upon consent from children - nobody can. I think that is a fairly well established legal principle. In many places, a contract cannot be enforced against a minor no matter whether it was freely entered. Statutory rape laws say it doesn't matter if the minor consented. And so on . . .

"Statutory rape laws say it doesn't matter if the minor consented" that is probably an extreme example that some might find unpalatable, but it does support the point.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#117

Post by xxs »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #9
jdietrich wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR doesn't specify what you can't do with personal data, it specifies what you can do. Personal data is private by default; you can only use my data if it is explicitly lawful for you to do so. If you're not absolutely sure that what you're doing is in line with the GDPR, you shouldn't do it. That's by design, not by accident. The GDPR's fundamental principles are set out in article 5. You should collect the le…

The issue with the GDPR as worded and this ruling is that they remove the possibility of informed individual decisions. In this case it seems that all involved were informed and OK with it but that did not matter. I would also think that knowing where pupils are at all times is quite a legitimate aim for a school.

A school performing face recognition is a joke when it comes to privacy.

Coming from billions dollar business, storing document copies, required by law for certain type for contracts, securely is a HUGE burden and liability (aside the permission management, etc.) alongside the necessary audits - both internal and external.

Having footage and training data on kids would be a resounding 'no' from me (both as a parent and engineer). Schools would never, ever have enough resources do to it properly. In this particular instance they need one bit of info: "present" and that should be it all.

The fine is well justified, considering someone won a contract to install the system without any oversight from the school.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#118

Post by mytailorisrich »

xxs wrote: post #117
mytailorisrich wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with the GDPR as worded and this ruling is that they remove the possibility of informed individual decisions. In this case it seems that all involved were informed and OK with it but that did not matter. I would also think that knowing where pupils are at all times is quite a legitimate aim for a school.

A school performing face recognition is a joke when it comes to privacy. Coming from billions dollar business, storing document copies, required by law for certain type for contracts, securely is a HUGE burden and liability (aside the permission management, etc.) alongside the necessary audits - both internal and external. Having footage and training data on kids would be a resounding 'no' from me (both as a parent a…

Facial recognition can raise privacy concerns but it does not necessarily erode privacy.

Schools have a duty to provide a safe environment, including keeping track of who's on school premises, where pupils are, and whether pupils are let to leave premises when they are not expected to. Obviously the younger the pupils the stronger those duties.

For example, facial recognition could tell the system that you are in the library but doing so would not erode your privacy in the library at all.

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#119

Post by Zenst »

Iv wrote: post #73
Barrin92 wrote: post #11

Good. Not only does this ensure that the students enjoy privacy, monitoring children in school with surveillance systems could have come straight out of foucault's discipline and punish. Maybe we should think about how we make schools spaces of freedom for our children rather than turning them into the next panopticon.

School is the most authoritarian experience one typically experiences in a democracy. Here is a place where a strict hierarchy is enforced, through means of parental and peer pressure, anxiety over your future. Your schedule is planned by the minute, even peeing requires an authorization. Chatting is banned except on very limited time spans. The fact that we have kept a part of middle-age inside our modern societies…

I can think of a few HR departments over time, that would make the worst school experience look like a walk in the park. Let's be fair, I never got a written warning for slouching in a chair at school...

Re: Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to GDPR fine

#120

Post by snovv_crash »

Zenst wrote: post #119
Iv wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School is the most authoritarian experience one typically experiences in a democracy. Here is a place where a strict hierarchy is enforced, through means of parental and peer pressure, anxiety over your future. Your schedule is planned by the minute, even peeing requires an authorization. Chatting is banned except on very limited time spans. The fact that we have kept a part of middle-age inside our modern societies…

I can think of a few HR departments over time, that would make the worst school experience look like a walk in the park. Let's be fair, I never got a written warning for slouching in a chair at school...

My wife had fingernail inspections at school. Mandatory clear nail varnish.
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