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Iris Scanning For New Jersey Grade School
coolphysco1010 writes "When a parent arrives to pick up their child at one of three grade schools in the Freehold Borough School District, they'll need to look into a camera that will take a digital image of their iris. That photo will establish positive identification to gain entrance into the school..The Teacher-Parent Authorization Security System (T-PASS), a software application developed by Eyemetric Identity Systems, was installed on the front office computers at each of the three schools."
I can't imagine the countless hours photographing people into the database and asking Mrs. Robinson to remove her sunglasses would actually stop a child abductor. Besides, he could just drive another mile to any other grade school and commit his felonies there.
But in the State-Congress after someone said exactly what I said, someone else yelled "won't anyone think of the children?" and the bill was signed. Seems that phrase overrides any kind of common sense.
The voice of the next generation. "In this tower, in my mind..." Babble - Tower
welcome our new Iris Scanning overlords.
To a nail, every person with a hammer looks like a problem.
are these kind of things really necessary? sounds too paranoid to me.
I wonder how much testing they've done to see if you can fool the system by cutting someone's eyes out or their head off and holding it up to the camera. I suppose you would have to have iris pictures of the same person alive and dead to really test it. On a less morbid note, I wonder if you could fool it by kidnapping a parent, then taking a high resolution photo of their face. Can the system determine stress levels to see if the face it's looking at is under duress? Even easier, just force someone at gunpoint to look into the camera.
This is money well spent. Schools should spend more and more on these high-tech widgets to support the vendors and developers of such technology. Who needs books, computers, better teacher salarys. Everyone knows that the real needs are for more complex security systems and more control over the doors to our schools, especially elementary schools.
And so if a parent refuses to have their privacy infringed just to pick their child up from school will the child be held indefinitely or expelled?
Not only do you need to worry about actually getting all of the parents involved which can become a headache in and of itself, but what about when Uncle John is in town and volunteers to help out by going to pick up the kids? Is he going to need to check in with the school first, show some credentials, get authorization from the parents, then have his iris photographed and recorded? And if it is easier than that for him to get a temporary day pass, how will you make it harder for any child abductor playing the part?
Also, what if the technology breaks? Or let's talk about the huge lines that will form in order to get all the parents into the parking lot - even if the technology runs perfectly smoothly (which we all know it ALWAYS does... technology NEVER fails). Since all of the kids get out of school at the same time, the majority of the parents will all arrive at the same time and cause a huge bottle neck.
How will they keep the child abductors from going in on foot and walking out with the child to their car parked outside of the lot? Not all abductees are quickly snatched and shoved into a car. Some are convinced that the criminal is really a friend of the family and go along quite willingly. So unless they are surrounding the school with barbed wire fences and have a guard at the entrance and exit, you won't stop the criminal from entering. If you do, then you are turning our schools into prisons which can't be good for the children. But I guess that's not what they meant when they said think of the children...
The entire thing is a logistical nightmare and if you ask me, doesn't add all that much security. I should rephrase that, it doesn't add enough security to warrant the inconvenience. And all of this is without even touching the big brother conspiracy theory argument.
"A wolf's eyes can see into your soul"
My writing
Over... Kill...
Ok, I have more than 2 words to say. One obvious question: is it a good idea to do everything possible to avoid the kidnapping/abuse of one child? Probably. But with that in mind let's think about the real reason such seemingly extreme precautions are being taken. I believe it's over-sized schools.
In small neighborhoods everyone knows everyone else. In small schools every teacher recognizes every student and every parent. It's only as schools get large that adults picking up children become anonymous. Now I'm not sure making many more smaller schools is a solution. But I'd much prefer to send a child to a school where they can pay enough attention to recognize me. Then they have a natural suspicion of anyone in the area they don't recognize.
Developers: We can use your help.
Not only that, but the technology is costing over $120 000 per school. So the government (National Institute of Justice) is using that money on iris scanning instead of the passing that sort of money on to the school boards for little things like the children's textbooks, teacher training, and computer access.
Seems that, to think of the children's present, we forgot to think of the children's future.
Pretty soon the RFID implants will become mandatory, or nearly so. If we put up with fingerprinting for drivers licenses, retinal scans to get kids from school, there's only RFID left. I remember an article about how "liberating" it was to have an RFID chip, and how much easier it'll make our life. I figure I'll hold out as long as I can.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
The idea of using iris scanning is undoubtably cool, but is it ready for real life application?
The system, according to the article, is four adults for each kid. Is that a great idea? Parents and one set of grandparents. What happens when the four are out and someone else needs to pick up the kid, like an aunt or uncle?
In other ways, its a great idea; You're not going anywhere without your eyes. But the current technical limitations are bad. Also, the cost is also an issue.
Of course, protection is needed. What's wrong with a swipe card? Or RFID keychains? A little more expensive to implement, but then you run the risk of losing one and having access.
I think that humans and technology combined are the solution. Facial recognition with a name lookup. Look up the kid and see pictures of the authorized guardians. You have to pay someone to do it, but it is by far the best: One person monitors and lets people in. The only problem with that is that it is subject to human error.
The real problem is that every solution has a problem; cost, errors, or otherwise. I'm sure this stuff will be sorted out in a few years.
Most kidnappings/molestations, etc. occur within the family/friends, so you'd probably get better protection if you only let the kids go home with strangers... No, I'm not serious, just making a point that this won't do much of anything.
What if parents divorce and only one has custody? The school's system wouldn't know this unless it was told so by a human. Do you think it would be updated fast enough to prevent the other parent from picking up the child and abducting him/her?
If it's like every other school I've seen (and I mean EVERY) the school will spend enormous amounts of money identifying visitors, yet not even install fences. Or doors. Or security people. Or common sense. I've walked through a high school unchallenged numerous times. The one time I was challenged, I showed a home-made ID, explained that this was the only thing they had at the time, and the teacher said, "Oh, OK".
Until the schools attack the issue of security and not just the *perception* of security, our kids will be in danger as much as ever.
If the kid is getting picked up then he isn't walking home, is he?
The whole point of the program is to prevent strangers form picking up your kids. If you let your little kids walk home alone through the inner city then it has nothing to do with you (oh and PS you're a horrible parent).
Not that I necessairily agree with the program but your arguments make no sense.
Amazingly enough I worked on a beta for this project. The iris scanner is a simple tool. The fact is IRIS images are practically impossible to fake. The images are stored in some kind of lossless image format which makes it easily stored into any backend database. You could run the whole thing with a Windows frontend. (VB or VC are the only ones supported in the camera API as far as I know) This project has great potential and I think this will be adopted in more schools throughout the state. Its no more expensive or difficult to administer than any other biometric. I think this is a great step towards safer schools and the practical applications of biometrics.
If you think about it rationally, the company selling these is quite clever for pushing the units into schools. They are capitalizing on their experience in the areas of:
I predict that 'Wall Street' will reward them well for their ingenuity.
Then again, I could be just a tad bit cynical.
--
Sig arrêt
Yeah, cause a person walking up to an elementary school during an extremely busy school pickup time would not be noticed carrying a decapitated head or yanked-out eyeballs and pressing them up to the iris scanner.
God is it just me or has the average IQ on this site actually dropped 50 points in the last two years?
How exactly will this system help? By providing technology that few understand, people will be tempted to lean on it and begin to ignore their instincts. If a seldom-seen uncle appears out of the blue to pick up a child a few hours early, even if they pass the scanner, it would still warrant a call to the parents — just to check. The temptation of an administrator would be to think, "well, if they passed the scanner, they must be okay," so I'd think it might not be all that useful. After all, a policy change and an ID check at entry doors would do the same thing without so high a cost.
Second, and no less important: how reliable is the system? Can it false-positive? Can I hack in to add an malicious record? Umm ... yeah ... can I see the source code just to make sure it's secure?
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
And on another note, why is it not enough to just ask for ID and have parents sign something? Its one thing to watch the doors to keep drug dealers out, its another to ask parents to submit to retinal scans.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
This is a sad commentary on what is important in the post 9/11 US.
What terrible thing could have happened that would make a school district shell out $369,000 and hire two technicians for an eye scanner? It is not like schools don't have funding problems, with music and arts programs being cut left and right, and teacher aaleries not competitive.
Isn't the retnal scanner overkill? Apparently not. The superintendant says, "We had a swipe-card system that operated the doors, but the technology was obsolete." What would make them think a swipe card system is obsolete? Most hotels and many businesses in the US use swipe cards for access.
What a freaking waste.
I just can't believe how wrong this is! For one, stranger abductions are actually rather rare. A much more common case is known and trusted adults. These are people who would likely be in the database and so will have no problem.
Now the second problem. Are they saying that the classes have gotten large and impersonal enough that the teachers have never met their students' parents before or that there are so many parents to meet that they won't remember them all? How can a school meet it's responsability to care for grade school aged children if it's so under-staffed that they don't even know who the parents are? Perhaps all that cash should be spent on reducing class size?
Thirdly, don't their staff care enough about the kids to not deliver them into the hands of strangers? Surely if the child doesn't know the person, they'll hesitate to just go home with them. I would think that the shchool should have contact info for the parents and trusted others and would be willing to make a phone call in case of doubt?
I suppose they'll just continue replacing adequate caring staff and a nurturing environment with m achines and databases with final arbitration power. Then they'll wonder why the kids grow up to be anti-social. These are human children, not standardized parts on an assembly line. A personal touch is called for.
I guess this will make children attending the school totally safe - especially the ones standing around THE BUS STOP! From reading the article, it seems this system is only for parents who come into the school in the middle of the day. And looking at the school district website I find so many classes at the schools that it would be impractical to have every parent picking up a kid at the end of the day to park and go inside to get their children even if they only have 15 children per classroom. I have never heard of, and searching could not find, any cases where somebody walked into a school pretending to be a parent in order to kidnap a child. Putting all of this together, it is apparent that the "security" system is primarily in place to control the parents and to restrict them from participating in the education of their children. Want to make the school safe from outsiders coming in? The schools where I live have a very low tech way of doing things - once school starts all outside doors are locked except the door to the school office. If you need or want to come to school you just come through the office, where you will be challenged if the office staff does not know you.
From the first applicable google hit for "statistics child abductions"
Out-of-the-home abductions occur 45-65 times annually.
So, assuming this program is completely successful, and every child abduction in New Jersey occurs in that one school every year. You've saved just over one child.
Heck, for 120 grand you could probably just buy off all the sex offenders and save them all.
But what part of asking for identification "having their privacy infringed"?
Go ahead and blather all the rationalizations you want, but efficacy is the main concern, and privacy is a stupid red herring.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Demolition Man
Oh, textbooks shcmextsbooks! All we need are the cute shiny things that go "bing!" when we turn them on. Kids don't need to learn anything. They just need to be amused.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
No, the way that the money is handed out comes from various programs. The money for an iris scanning system comes from a program designed to increase security in schools. Textbooks come from the general education fund. Teacher training comes from the teachers themselves (It's called college. You know, that place you go to after high school to learn what you need to know for your intended career? Future teachers get grants to help pay for college by agreeing to teach in areas where teachers are desperately needed, such as inner-city schools.) Computer access comes from another government program (albeit, flawed). This program will purchase computers and establish internet access for schools.
If you are really concerned that schools aren't getting what they need, help them out. Donate to your local school district.
Also, whenever a referendum comes up where a new schools is needed (whether due to old buildings falling apart or overpopulation) and the government is offering up a matching grant for that purpose, please vote for it. That money can only be earmarked for two things: Building schools and building prisons. If you don't build one you need to build the other. Which one would you prefer? (BTW, the government doesn't have to ask to build prisons)
It could be worse. You could have just voted a new tax levy in your district last fall only to have it spent on this...
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
"So, I guess we can go ahead and tattoo barcodes on the little buggers' arms too, right?"
First of all this is the parents, not the kids, so your answer doesn't make sense.
Second, taking a measure of something already present is a bit different from actively tattooing them.
What a dumb attempt at an analogy, and the worst part is YOU DIDN'T EVEN ANSWER MY QUESTION.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Principle Skinner: Just think--with that lottery money, we could buy history books that know how the Korean War came out, math books without that base-6 crap, and a state-of-the-art detention hall where the children are held in place with magnets.
Teacher: Magnets. Always with the magnets.
I don't think that many would disagree with you in the fact that scanning irises and then recognizing that image later is "cool" and may even "work as designed". However, you're ignoring the real questions here: should we be doing this at all? What are the wider social implications to going down this brave new world?
You blithely state that this system is a great step towards safer schools. Do you really think so? Do you even have kids? I do, I have two. It doesn't make me an authority to represent all parents, but I do know this: I would fight this damn system until I was blue in the face if anyone here ever tried to bring it in. It wouldn't make me feel any safer about my kids at all, and the money can surely be used for countless more worthy projects in the school.
Here's another interesting anecdote for you: there are two of those "mega play center" places near where I live. One of them had wrist bands for every adult and kid that enters the place (with the adult one being tied to the kids) and it also has security cameras. The other one has no security at all - just walk out with your kids any time you would like. Guess which one gives parents a false sense of security, and which one actually forces them to be aware of where their kids are at all times? And finally, guess which one had actual cases of kids being sexually molested right within the ball pit? (the pedophiles had learned where the camera's blind spots were).
Go wave your "this is cool technology" flag somewhere else.
"This is NOT just "asking for identification," ID is a little plastic card with your picture on it. They are requiring intrusive "ID" to take their own child home."
How is it intrusive? I'm not disagreeing but all you did in your post was screamn the same thing you screamed previously, with nothing but your opinion as justification.
I have to wonder if you really know how this technology works if you genuinely think it's "intrusive".
"Take your same statement and apply it to "the police" asking for the ID of "random person walking down the street."
Why would you post such a flawed analogy? You seem pretty bright, you should know better.
An unknown person walking down the street minding their business is wholly different from an individual who is trying to pick up a child. You won't admit it of course, but it is and you know it.
You have yet to give a single reasonable explanation for your assertion that this is an infringment of privacy.
Please try again.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
$120,000 plus tons of aggrivation is a huge price to pay for the small gain. As someone pointed out the number of at-school abductions by unauthorized-to-pick-up-the-kids people is quite small.
It's alot cheaper to spend that money teaching children proper safety. For primary school kids these should work:
* if uncle Joe or Dad or Mom or even a teacher touches your inside your underwear [every parent's worst nightmare short of injury, death, or a missing child] tell your mom and dad and any teacher.
* never get in a car with anyone unless mom or dad or your teacher or a police officer tells you it is okay
* always make sure your teacher or principal sees you and waves at you when you get in a car leaving school
* yell and scream and hit, bite, or kick them if you must if anyone asks you to go with them and you know you aren't supposed to
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Good points. The social impact is negligable. The school is using a different ID system, plain and simple. I'll admit a drivers license is still a good form of ID. What is the difference between looking at an ID and a picture of an Eye? Why would you fight this? Its the administrations job to make the decisions regarding safety and security policy. If parents feel the system makes their kids safer it is simply a side benefit. Lets face it - if someone is willing enough to snatch up your kid they are going to succeed. I'll agree on the monetary side of things. The cash should be spent on school books, supplies, and teachers salaries, but its a government grant. Seeing Iris technology in action is exciting. Biometrics are inevitable in the near future. I would love it if I didnt have to carry ID! Scan me please! Our timeclock / door access in our company is all biometric. Now I dont need timecards or swipecards for employees. There are many ways to look at it. I am all for technology!
Why would a potenital kidnaper (which by the way is usually someone the child knows) want to take the child from inside the school, when they can kidnap them in front of the school before boarding the bus????
When you take the time and look at the news, the molestors are not found outside the school walls, but inside. Each year there are more cases of teacher-student sexual misconduct of all types (heterosexual and homosexual) than there are child abductions. What this amounts to is a way to waste taxpayer money while ignoring the root of the problem (corruption inside the system).
Kiss ass while you bitch so you can get rich but the boss gets richer off you. --Dead Kennedys
What if the parent is wearing a tinted contact lens? That will change how the iris looks to the software
I can see this pissing off a lot of people with the added inconvienience and hassle it will cause.
"How?"
Are you SERIOUSLY asking this question?
"The net result is the same."
No, in one case you're TATTOOED and marked essentially for life, while in the other case THERE ARE NO CHANGES WHATSOEVER.
It's people like you that cloud issues like this by injecting idiotic opinions into the discussion then insisting on inclusion.
Mod me down if you want, but anyone who has to ask how getting a FUCKING TATTOO is different from having your picture taken doesn't deserve a seat at the table for this discussion.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Most drug dealers do not even dream of that business.
A grade school makes it real by spending that amount of money
for the illusion of security.
What happens when the database gets hacked? The parents have to all come in for pictures again? I can't just change my iris...
What if some grabs my iris definition and inserts into another system that matches irises? They just became me, and there's nothing I can do about it. I can't just change my iris...
Next news item:
One-eyed Parents Found Wandering Aimlessly Outside New Jersey School
Kidnapper arrested with bag full of eyeballs
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Swallowed that line with the hook, did you?
Why would somebody not want to be scanned and kept track of? Why would we not want our kids to grow up with the reality of paranoid, police-state control methods firmly ingrained in their brains?
You said yourself that you would love to not have to carry ID. Is that purely from a convenience stand-point, or is there another emotion bubbling down there inside you? Does any part of you feel that being kept track of is an insult. Does any part of you not want to growl, "I am not a bug. I am not a lab rat!"
Why on earth would anybody want to be tagged? To be tagged is to be controlled. --What are tags for other than to make sure you don't step outside the boundaries which were laid down by somebody who wants to make sure you only step where they want you to step. Somebody for you to submit to.
I don't know about everybody else, but I do not want to submit to anybody. --And I don't want our kids to learn that in our schools, (though it's rather too late for that). But in this case, it is especially disgusting, because the money for the project is coming from the government. The government are fascists, plain and simple, and they are barely hiding their intentions these days.
-FL
Bush, after being caught for illegal wire tapping, turns around and uses an emotional appeal to get the big search engines to hand over their databases to catch, ("Ooooh") pedophiles! --Yahoo wants to fight pedophiles, they tell us, why doesn't Google want to fight pedophiles? The psychopath when caught in a lie or a crime simply tells another lie and commits another crime, all without batting an eyelash. Regular humans, who would be naturally ashamed of being caught, don't understand the psychopath's reaction and so assume that they, and not the psychopath, (Bush) are at fault somehow.
And for goodness sake! Bush, being a psychopath, means he's almost certainly engaged in sex crimes himself. The Washington political elite certainly have. . .
Conspiracy of Silence
A long history going back to Bush 41 and Reagan
Photographer tied to WH child sex-ring arrested after Thompson suicide
Bush and his cronies don't care about the wellbeing of ANYBODY but themselves. Heck, they have no problem bombing children, so why would they care about stopping pedophiles? Answer: They don't.
A government grant to help install bio-metrics in schools is there for one reason.
To be tagged is to be controlled. --What are tags for, other than to make sure you don't step outside boundaries which were laid down by somebody who wants to make sure you only step where they want you to step? --Somebody for you to submit to.
Do not submit.
-FL
I suppose the difference is whether or not you actually wrote code or work for a PR agency. With respect to your professional ethics, I suspect that you'd be equally cheerful about and willing to tell us the benefits of pitching tobacco to schoolkids if that's where the money was today.
Tech Public Policy stuff
As "Funny", I suppose. The post certainly makes more sense than the school district does.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Just think of the increase in cases of pink eye, not to mention other eye infections.
"The last thing I want to do is deal with a bunch of people who want something."
Major Major
They can hardly get photo id's right at my school, how could they possibly get iris scans working?
Another prime example of the messed up state that the US is in currently.
;)
Should one cry or weep over these sort of things?
I suppose the bottom line is that it is sad the length you guys have to go to protect yourself from Random and Non-Specific Evil People (TM) lurking in every possible corner of your country. Be they real or imaginative!
In Norway little old ladies CAN actually walk in dark allies with $1000 in their purse. And little children would be able to relatively safely take candy from strangers. Our reality, your utopia?
But then again, if your people were as safe as us, you might start thinking about actually important stuff when you wouldn't have to spend 95% of your time worrying. Like, reading the fiscal budget, reading non-biased and intelligent news, thinking before you elect your representatives, and possibly even pondering if iris scanning at schools really are such a neat idea!
Not trolling here, just making a point about how the rest of the world sees your self-induced state of utter paranoia...
God forbid I would have to send an unregistered friend/relative to pick up my child incase of family emergency.
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
Teaching the kids how to respond to someone trying to kidnap them is the answer. Have codewords so the kid knows whether that person is really there to pick them up or not. Teach them, that if it's a male trying to kidnap them, knee them as hard as possible between their legs. Kick and scream and make a scene. If it's in the school parking lot, yeah, they'll get noticed.
I don't see any harm in having security cameras in the parking lot and around the school. If something happens, they can review them. Just don't have them live monitored.
So what happens when someone simply follows the other parents into the school because some held the door for them?