Facial recognition could soon play an active role in kids' school life, at least in the UK. Nine schools in the North Ayrshire area they will start receiving payments for lunches in the canteen and / or cafeteria by scanning the faces of students.
Show your face, pay for the focaccia
Facial recognition technology, say those who are introducing it (school authorities and the installer, CRB Cunningham), should help minimize contact during the pandemic. I think it's mainly intended to speed up transaction times. It may seem like a "monetary" need, but it also includes practical elements: for example, using the few minutes of a lunch break to serve an entire school of hungry children in the canteen.
Before thinking about the issues we know well about facial recognition, you should know that 97% of the children (or parents, when the children were not old enough) gave their consent to the solution. And again: many systems installed in schools were already equipped with fingerprint readers. In other words? Companies and schools talk about "a simple change in biometric technology, rather than a new level of security". Will be.
I am not worthy to participate in this table of the satisfied.
It is clear that enthusiastic declarations are not enough for those who view these new technological applications with (even right, sometimes) suspicion. Both Big Brother Watch and England's Biometrics Commissioner argue that facial recognition is arbitrary. They worry that school implementations could normalize face scanning and “educate” students to accept privacy restrictions.
After all, whether this is the aim or not, surely this is the result. If you grow up with this technology at your school, you won't object when it's out and about in airports, or stadiums, or on the streets. Or anywhere.
