Schools Using Facial Recognition Creating ‘Out of Control’ Surveillance Society: Campaigners

Calls for immediate ban on facial recognition after privacy group finds 60 schools using the technology

A pupil eats her cooked hot dinner during her lunch break in the canteen at St. Luke's Church of England Primary School in east London, on Sept. 3, 2020. Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images

Over 60 schools are using facial recognition in what privacy campaigners say is making Britain a “surveillance society growing out of control.”

A new report (pdf) on the lawless gathering of facial data, published by Big Brother Watch, reveals how schools are investing “huge sums” of money in the technology despite calls for the practice to be banned completely in the UK.