Summary

• Facial recognition is being used at scale in public schools in Parana to automate attendance and identify students.
• The systems process very large volumes of children’s biometric data and retain images on government servers for a year.
• Independent reporting and studies point to accuracy below contract targets, with misidentification emerging as a practical risk.
• Privacy and education concerns intensify when attendance data may affect welfare eligibility or other administrative decisions.
• Brazil has moved toward national rules for biometric technologies in schools, including limits on automated welfare linkage and new oversight roles.
• The cluster also reflects a cross-border privacy pattern: European-developed biometric tools are being deployed abroad even where similar domestic use faces stronger resistance.