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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.
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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.
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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
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?
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.
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.
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)
> what part of asking for identification "having their privacy infringed"?
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. The parents have more right to ask for the ID of people at the school than the school does that of the parent.
Take your same statement and apply it to "the police" asking for the ID of "random person walking down the street." Is it a privacy infringement then? Of course it is. "Well, that's a government official." So is a public school employee.
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.
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????
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.
Next news item:
One-eyed Parents Found Wandering Aimlessly Outside New Jersey School
Kidnapper arrested with bag full of eyeballs
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