Task: The EU wants to regulate facial recognition

SEK 200,000 became the bill for a high school in Skellefteå when the Data Inspectorate (DI) earlier this week delivered Sweden's first fine for violating the Data Protection Regulation GDPR.

The school had used cameras with face recognition to check the student's presence, which caused DI to say stop.

But face-recognition legislation can be further tightened, according to the Financial Times. The EU Commission will investigate "the indiscriminate use of face recognition technology", according to a "high ranking EU official".

EU citizens should be given the right to "know when facial recognition technology is used", the source said.

The discussions about regulation come after testing the technology in several places in Europe, some of which happened without people being informed about it, writes the news site Cnet.com.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said that she will develop new artificial intelligence (AI) legislation within her first 100 days in office. AI is an important part of modern systems that recognize faces.

A spokesman for the Commission declines to comment on the new data, and refers to the already existing expert group set up to investigate the use of AI technology.

However, some evaluators have expressed doubts about further legislation. Partly, "biometric data", such as face recognition data, is covered by GDPR. Doru Peter Frantescu is a member of the European AI Alliance, the EU's discussion group on AI, also believes it is more important to educate citizens.

- Then citizens can distinguish themselves in situations where AI offers an opportunity for them, and those situations where AI is a threat, he tells the Euronews site.