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Spain's airport operator Aena has been hit with a hefty €10 million fine over its facial recognition systems, which have become a familiar sight at airports like Alicante where they're used to speed up security checks. The company is now gearing up for a court battle to overturn what it calls a "disproportionate" penalty.

 

The Spanish data protection agency AEPD has taken issue with how Aena rolled out the technology, arguing that the airport operator failed to properly assess the risks before launching facial recognition scanners that process sensitive biometric information.

 

According to the watchdog, Aena jumped into using this high-risk technology without conducting a thorough data protection impact assessment that would demonstrate the system was necessary, suitable and proportionate.

 

Aena, however, sees things very differently. The company maintains it did carry out impact assessments before switching on the biometric boarding programmes and is pushing back firmly against the agency's conclusions. In a statement released earlier this week, Aena insisted that user data has remained secure throughout and that passengers gave their informed consent to have their biometric information processed.

 

"The security of this data has not been at risk at any time," the airport operator stated, emphasising that there has been no data breach affecting users across its network of Spanish airports.

 

But AEPD insists that the company never justified why biometric data was necessary for passenger identification in the first place, pointing out that less intrusive alternatives could have achieved the same goals and highlighting shortcomings in risk management and security measures.

 

On top of the €10,043,002, the AEPD has also temporarily suspended biometric data processing until Aena completes a proper impact assessment.

 

In the meantime, Aena has confirmed it will continue working on streamlining documentation processes and aims to get the biometric boarding programme back up and running "as soon as possible".

 

Image: Spanish News Today