A watchdog fined a Swedish local authority over $20,559 (200,000 SEK) after it was caught trialing facial recognition technology to monitor the attendance of high-school students, according to a report by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

The school in Skellefteå, a city in northern Sweden, was running a pilot program that tracked 22 students over the course of three weeks, recording a pupil every time they entered a classroom.

The high school board stated that they received the students' and parents' consent to use facial recognition for attendance control, as stated in the EDPB report.

However, the Swedish Data Protection Authority concluded that the program still violated several articles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), imposing a fine on the municipality, which is ultimately responsible for the data collected. The DPA also claims the school failed to warn participants of the program's impact and should have consulted with them first.

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