SpainManufacturing2022–2023Albero Forte Composite (Plastic Forte)
Facial recognition for employee attendance
A Spanish court ordered Plastic Forte to cease unlawful facial attendance processing and compensate a worker
Problem
Plastic Forte used facial recognition to record employees' working hours. The manufacturer argued that attendance recording was a legal obligation.
Approach
By March 2022, the company used facial images for clocking employees in and out through purchased attendance software. The court found that a worker had not consented to that purpose, had not been offered an alternative, and that the company lacked the required data protection impact assessment. The company paid a reduced €12,000 regulatory penalty in February 2023; in September, the court ordered cessation of the unlawful conduct and €6,251 in compensation. Plastic Forte announced an appeal and disputed descriptions of the system as surveillance, saying it served attendance recording.
Results
Takeaway
The obligation to record working hours did not resolve the separate requirements attached to facial identification. The company had obtained permission for promotional images, which the court found did not cover attendance processing.
Categories
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Business function
- Human resourcesProduction and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Computer vision
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Evidence
- Regulator, audit or court
Sources
Source summaries
The judgment established use of facial attendance processing in March 2022 and recorded payment of a €12,000 regulatory penalty. It found a violation of the worker's privacy and image rights, ordered cessation of the conduct, and awarded €6,251 in compensation.
The report identified Plastic Forte as a plastics manufacturer with about 470 employees. It described the company's attendance-recording explanation and reported that acknowledgment of responsibility and early payment reduced the proposed €20,000 penalty to €12,000.
The report described the compensation ruling and the company's announced appeal. A published company correction disputed the characterization of attendance recording as surveillance and said the regulatory penalty concerned a missing technical requirement rather than failure to inform employees.
Full details are in the original sources.
