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Ireland's data watchdog said Friday it will probe whether budget airline Ryanair's use of facial recognition to check the identity of customers booking through third-party websites violates EU privacy laws.

The Data Protection Commission (DPC)—which also helps to police EU data privacy—said it had received complaints from Ryanair customers across the bloc about its processing of personal data, and said the probe would be EU-wide in scope.

The regulator said the complaints concerned the carrier's practice of requesting additional identification verification from those booking travel tickets through third-party sites and online travel agents (OTAs), as opposed to directly with Ryanair.

"The DPC has received numerous complaints from Ryanair customers across the EU/EEA who after booking their flights were subsequently required to undergo a verification process," DPC deputy commissioner Graham Doyle said in a statement.

"The verification methods used by Ryanair included the use of facial recognition technology using customers' biometric data," he said.

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