Many schools in Scotland have taken a very innovative step and have incorporated facial recognition software allowing students to pay for their meals much more effectively. The software scans the faces of students at the tills and compares them with the data stored. This allows the children to pay for their food quickly during lunch hours.
UK Schools scan children faces via facial recognition software
9 schools in North Ayrshire, Scotland have installed facial recognition software at the tills that scan the faces of students. The software then checks them against a record saved in the school servers to make the payment process easier.
The company that has developed the software claims this to be a more Covid-friendly method while ensuring a quicker queue time for students. According to a report from The Financial Times, with the incorporation of the system, the transaction time at sites of operation has been lowered down to 5 seconds.
David Swanston, the CEO of the company behind the installation of these systems told Financial Times: “In a secondary school you have around about a 25 minute period to serve potentially 1,000 pupils. So we need fast throughput at the point of sale.”
Criticism
With every new innovation, there comes a lot of criticism. In this case too, privacy campaigners have been very critical.
The privacy campaigners say that less intrusive methods should have been used instead of the implementation of facial recognition.
Parents, however, can opt their children out of the technology. And parents can also request that schools delete their child’s biometric data and records. Privacy advocates are concerned that the measure is intrusive and overbroad.
In England, the Department Of Education says that the use of the technology depends entirely upon the institute. The department added that they keep no information regardless of the extent the technology has spread around us.