Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Phoenix School to Install Face Scanners

Posted by michael on from the think-of-the-children dept.

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."

8 of 361 comments (clear)

  1. so.... by AnimeEd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    not a joke or anything but does it mean sex offenders are not allowed into schools??

    1. Re:so.... by StewedSquirrel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      sex offenders ARE usually allowed to have kids of their own...

      ponder that...

      --
      There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
  2. Is it just me? by zeroprime · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But why would there be enough non-faculty, non-parent adults entering a school that they would need something like this?
    I'm assuming that the children aren't sex offenders.

    --
    Hey! come on! try dividing it by anything!
  3. Orwell by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate to sound like a privacy activist, but i would feel somewhat uncomfortable having my face scanned *anywhere*. Maybe, instead of trying to create things to stop known offenders, we should focus more on preventing the offences, through education and rehabilitation. Not to flame, but if the US government spent more of its budget on the countries own welfare, instead of destroying other countries, it may prove a more worthy cause.

    --

    Hi there

  4. locating missing children by segment · · Score: 4, Interesting
    VeriChip (PDF file) is touted as the next thing to track missing children. It's an implantable chip with GPS capabilities, that can (supposedly) monitor vital life signs. Body temps, pulse, etc. it was also slated to have your health records on the chip as well. Originally it was (and is still being used on) made for cattle ranchers to keep track of their stock...

    Now this is so cool its scary because of the types of abuses that can occur with the chip. Now reason for bringing this up? BOP, and DOD were looking at the chip. DoD as a method of replacing dotags, BOP (Bureau of Prisons...? Puzzling considering these chips are implantable.

    Sex offenders? They should have something like this, but at the same time they shouldn't. If they've done their time, they should go through a vigorous psyche exam before being released. Why punish them twice if they've served their time. Now I think they're the biggest scum on earth, but at the same time you can't have your cake and eat it too...

    What? The chip to replace the Social Security card? Scary thought... but in a way freakishly cool...

    --
    MoFscker
  5. We had one of those by StewedSquirrel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    my highschool had one of those. He sat in a chair by the office near the front entrance for the busiest part of the day. I think he also did work with parole officers for the trouble-kids and worked with DHS sometimes on cases involving kids at the school. He knew all the kids by name. I never talked to him, but he knew me. He must have studied yearbooks.

    In all, I found him creepy. I would rather he wasn't there, but seeing how I lived fairly close to Columbine Highschool, I'm sure all the soccer moms couldn't sleep without knowing our school basically had a tax-payer provided armed guard.

    Stewey

    --
    There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
  6. Re:Hrmm.. who thought this out? by Mike+Hawk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wow, sheltered much?

    It does happen that a child will be abducted by a parent who, for one reason or another, does not have legal custody. Because the child is with someone who is their parent, they will not necessarily know that something is wrong, apart from what lie the abductor told them and that they might have no reason not to believe. They could be moved to another state or country, sent to school, and go about their life. They would still be "missing", and could still be in danger.

  7. I went to this school by philipsblows · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Okay, it was 20 years ago, but even then it was on the edge of questionable. This dodgy-factor was from a few students, though, and not from unwelcome visitors. The school is in an older part of town in a fairly high-traffic area (it's on 19th avenue, a major thoroughfare) but it is by no means an "inner city" school. Back then the school itself was surrounded by chain link fences and all classrooms have windows, with no hallways. Perhaps they've had these bad characters sneaking on to campus, but I would be surprised if they would go to the front office from there.

    Unless something has changed, this school is two fences and a concrete walkway away from the district office. Maybe that has something to do with the selection of the location.

    Sheriff Joe always seems to come up with new ways of raising eyebrows here in Phoenix. If you look him up on google, you'll find he also had cameras pointing at prisoners, he makes people wear black-and-white stripes in jail, he feeds then the bare minimum for food sometimes, and he has this "tent city" that I hear is not a fun place to visit at all. I expect we'll eventually have to start carrying our identification papers if he stays in office.