Privacy fears over facial recognition in lunch queue

Privacy campaigners have raised concerns about the use of facial recognition technology on pupils in school canteen lunch queues.

Nine schools in North Ayrshire began taking payments for school lunches this week by scanning the faces of their pupils, according to a report in the Financial Times.

The company supplying the technology claimed it was more Covid-secure than other systems.

Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said: “This is highly sensitive data that children should be taught to protect.”

North Ayrshire council said 97% of children or parents had given consent for the new system.