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Phoenix School to Install Face Scanners
I'm Spartacus! writes "CNN reports that a Phoenix middle school is intstalling face recognition scanners to help locate missing children and identify sex offenders. Civil Libertarians are justifiably concerned."
Many children are kidnapped from their legal guardians then tricked (i.e.: brainwashed) into believing that their parents don't want them or are dead or something like that. It usually happens in families where one parent has custody and the other parent would do anything to be with their child... (i.e. kidnap them).
A teacher at my elementary school was kidnapped from her classroom at gunpoint one day by her estranged husband. One possible use for this would be to feed his picture into it and when he showed up, the cops could have been called before he even got to the door.
1) Do you want to enter all the "estranged husbands" into the database? How do you define "estranged"? What if he has a kid at the school?
2) The police wouldh ave been called WHEN he got to the door and ONLY if he entered the principles office first to say "hi". Assuming the outlandish, that he DID go to the office to announce his presence, he would have then proceeded to the classroom and pulled his gun. The cops would have showed up 2 minutes later and a) there would have been a shootout b) he would have escaped and kidnapped her anyway or c) he would have surrendered at gunpoint in front of a bunch of kids.
Wow... sounds GREAT.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Constant surveillance on public officials would never happen, for 'reasons of security'. The Civil Liberties groups would never get to be involved.
It's perfectly legal for you to go to the beach and take pictures or video to your heart's content, even if children wind up in the shot. Now, if you show up at the beach with a telephoto lens and start taking extreme-close-up pictures of children, that may well fall under public nuisance or peeping tom laws. Again, the same holds true for adults: it's generally not OK to go to the beach and start taking zoom pics of adult women's chests, either.
That's not illegal, as long as you're in public places. Who cares who you think is or isn't a criminal? If you're walking down the street with your camcorder on and you witness a murder, take the video to the police and they can and will act upon it.
Absolutely, and that's why these cameras are a bad idea.
BTW, IANAL. This post is not legal advice.
I don't usually post anonymously, but this time I will. And it is obvious why: officially I am a sex offender. Realistically that means nothings. So let me explain.
When I was in college I went to a party. I met someone there. They looked about 20-21. They said they were 21. And unlike most of my life, this geek got lucky. Not once, but several times over the next few weeks. You think I wasn't in heaven?
Then one day this person visited with a friend. While the friend kept me busy in one room, this person stole a spare set of keys to my car. The next day I woke up and my car had been stolen. I went to the police and filed a report. Several hours later my car was totaled in a 4 car accident with the friend driving and this person in the car. The friend told me if I pressed charges there would be trouble. I pressed charges and there was trouble.
For despite what I had been told, despite what the ID this person had stated, they were only 15 when I met them and had only turned 16 the week before. And this person and the friend then told the police what had been going on. I was searched, arrested (and beaten during the arrest, my nose got "accidentally" broken) and spent a week in jail.
I was then indicted and convicted of a felony. I spent 6 months in prison and was also given 5 years on probation. I now have a felony record and little hope of a decent job. In fact I lost my union job when I was convicted. My car was totaled and the police refused to press charges because this person told police I let them borrow it. My insurance was cancelled and I now am high risk despite never having a ticket or accident ever. My future, my career and my life was destroyed because I was lied to.
That same year 3 other guys at college had similar things happen to them. One went to prison for six years because they drank beer before having sex which meant a triple sentence.
So before you make blanket statements such as "those people are the scum of the earth" remember guys, this could happen to you! And then you are marked for life and the alarm will go off when you pick up your kid. And your face and personal info will appear on the online database. And your neigbors will judge you. "Corruption of a minor" looks pretty bad on that screen when you don't know the facts.
Fortunately I met a wonderful woman who will soon be my wife. She also had a brush with the law because she dated a 15-year-old sophmore when she was 18. They broke up and he told his parents they had sex. She was arrested but charges were dropped later. So she has an arrest record for a sex offense. We do intend to have children. But I guess we'll have to send grandma to school to pick junior up. We are after all, "sex offenders". We paid for it in so many ways, but the stigma and the nightmare never ends and before I met my fiance, suicide seemed like a possible solution. I just hope it never happens to any of you "scum of the earth" people who stand in judgement of us.
Gawd, now I'm depressed, guess it's time for a beer...
If it didn't work for Tampa police (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0803/21tampa cams.html), why would it work better in this application?
After 2 years it yielded no positive identifications.