WHEN THE FACE ENTERS THE SCHOOL: SECURITY, FACIAL RECOGNITION AND THE LIMITS OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROTECTION

Abstract

Facial recognition in schools places two legitimate commitments in tension: protecting the school community and preserving the rights of children and adolescents whose faces may be converted into biometric data. This documentary study examines when facial recognition can be justified as a security resource and when its use begins to exceed the purpose that legitimized its adoption. The research is qualitative and uses Dialogical Discourse Analysis to interpret legislation, technical notes, educational policy documents and scientific literature on technology, school violence, personal data protection and facial recognition. Particular attention is given to the 2026 Brazilian National Data Protection Authority technical note concerning biometric attendance control in Paraná public schools. The analysis indicates that the ethical and educational significance of facial recognition changes according to purpose: identification and access control do not produce the same informational intervention as attendance registration, tracking of circulation or behavioral monitoring. The paper proposes the concept of a Biometric Intensification Staircase to represent this progression. It argues that security and privacy should not be treated as mutually exclusive values; however, the more technological identification advances from punctual protection to continuous observation, the stronger the requirements of necessity, proportionality, transparency, human review and data governance must become.