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Even if the facial data is not allowed to be saved or compared, an uneasy feeling remains.
What is it about? A candy vending machine is making headlines in Canada. The device from the Swiss manufacturer Invenda apparently scans the faces of the customers who use it. A student at the university where the machine is located found this out through an error message that appeared on the control panel and said (translated): “Error with the facial recognition application”.
Is scanning commonplace? When asked, the office of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner FDPIC wrote that we are currently not aware of any sales machines with facial recognition that are used for advertising purposes. Manufacturer Invenda tells SRF that around 170 of its vending machines are in use in Switzerland. The operators of the machines could decide for themselves whether to activate facial recognition or not. If it is used, it is to switch the machine into sales mode as soon as someone stands in front of the device.
What types are there? Not all facial recognition is the same. In the former, a photographed face is compared with images in a database with the aim of assigning a name to the face. With pure face capture (“scanning”), however, the captured faces remain anonymous. “The image is not used to identify a person by name, but simply to recognize whether it is a man or a woman, for example,” says SRF Digital editor Jürg Tschirren. Invenda states that it does not collect user data or photos with its machines, so individual identification is not possible.
What about data protection? Invenda, manufacturer of the device in question in Canada, asserts that its machine meets all the requirements of the European General Data Protection Regulation. This is considered particularly strict. The Swiss Federal Data Protection Act also categorizes facial data (together with other biometric data) as particularly worthy of protection. They must be handled with corresponding care. However, biometric data only has this status if it helps to uniquely identify a person. If you believe Invenda, this is not the case with its vending machines. From the outside, however, it is difficult to estimate what the machine does with the facial data it records, says Tschirren.
Why facial capture at all? A candy vending machine equipped with cameras and appropriate software can recognize that someone is standing in front of it and immediately switch to sales mode. The machine also receives information about who is standing in front of it: whether it is a man or a woman, someone young or someone old. The manufacturers of such devices promise to identify customer needs more accurately. If the machine sees a man, it displays products on its large screen that are particularly often bought by men. If it’s a teenager, then she sees, for example, drinks that are particularly popular with young customers.