US EditionAena Hit with €10M Fine Over Biometrics
Spain's Data Protection Agency fined Aena €10 million for insufficient legal and risk assessments in its facial recognition boarding system using special-category biometric data.
- On Wednesday, 26 November 2025, Spain's Data Protection Agency fined Aena 10,043,002 euros and ordered a temporary suspension of biometric data processing until a proper impact assessment is completed.
- The AEPD says Aena failed to complete the required Data Protection Impact Assessment, finding the DPIA and risk and security analysis inadequate under necessity and proportionality principles.
- The system scans passengers' faces and links them to other personal data to allow boarding by looking at a camera, processing facial patterns as special-category biometric data at several airports across Spain.
- Aena says it will appeal and calls the fine disproportionate, insisting data security was `not being at risk at any time` and travellers who opted in can still use the programme.
- Regulators and companies will look to the decision as a potential precedent, signaling that convenience is not sufficient and legal checklists for biometric projects must be watertight for airport operators and private companies experimenting with biometric tech.
20 Articles
20 Articles
Aena Hit with €10M Fine Over Biometrics
Spain’s airport operator, Aena, has found itself at the centre of a major privacy row after being hit with a €10 million fine for the way it rolled out its facial-recognition boarding system. The sanction, imposed by Spain’s Data Protection Agency (AEPD), is one of the largest the regulator has ever issued – and Aena is anything but happy about it. The programme in question allows passengers to… Source
The Spanish Agency for Data Protection (AEPD) has imposed a fine of more than 10 million euros on Aena for deploying facial recognition systems without having previously made a valid impact assessment that, among other issues, examines the necessity, suitability and proportionality of the measure.The airport manager has announced that he will appeal the sanction to the courts and that he understands that the resolution is not in accordance with …
The supervisor ensures that the program was implemented without assessing its impact. The manager disagrees with the sanction and will appeal against it.
Data protection suspends biometric treatment at airports by finding that the airport manager created a centralized database to identify travellers when less intrusive alternatives existed
The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has fined the airport manager Aena because of its biometric boarding program. These systems take a...
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