Slashdot Mirror
Face Recognition Is Now Being Used In Schools (theintercept.com)
Presto Vivace shares a report from The Intercept: Officials at the Lockport, New York, school district have purchased face recognition technology as part of a purported effort to prevent school shootings. Starting in September, all 10 of Lockport District's school buildings, just north of Buffalo, will be outfitted with a surveillance system that can identify faces and objects. The software, known as Aegis, was developed by SN Technologies Corp., a Canadian biometrics firm that specifically advertises to schools. It can be used to alert officials to whenever sex offenders, suspended students, fired employees, suspected gang members, or anyone else placed on a school's "blacklist" enters the premises. Aegis also sends alerts any time one of the "top 10" most popular guns used in school shootings appears in view of a camera. The district is spending most of its recent $4 million state "Smart School" grant on these and other enhancements to its security systems, including bullet-proof greeter windows and a mass notification system, according to the Niagra Gazette. Slashdot reader Presto Vivace adds: "This is why municipal elections are so important. Just because this stuff is on the market, does not mean your local school system has to buy it."
The report notes that "all the major school shootings in the last five years in the U.S. have been carried out by current students or alumnae of the school in question." These students wouldn't have their face entered into the face recognition system's blacklist. Furthermore, "Most shooters don't brandish their guns before opening fire; and by the time they do, an object-detection algorithm that could specify the exact type of weapon they're firing would not be of much use," reports The Intercept. "... the technology would give a school, at best, only a few extra seconds in response time to a shooting."
The report notes that "all the major school shootings in the last five years in the U.S. have been carried out by current students or alumnae of the school in question." These students wouldn't have their face entered into the face recognition system's blacklist. Furthermore, "Most shooters don't brandish their guns before opening fire; and by the time they do, an object-detection algorithm that could specify the exact type of weapon they're firing would not be of much use," reports The Intercept. "... the technology would give a school, at best, only a few extra seconds in response time to a shooting."
I'm afraid what is obvious is that you are an ignorant douche.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Firearms kept and borne by the civilian populace as individuals exist for five very important reasons...
1) Defense of life, liberty, and property against foreign invaders.
2) Hunting for food.
3) The shooting sports.
4) Defense of life and property against local agressors.
5) OVERTHROW OF YOUR SO CALLED "GOVERNMENT".
These were put in place because those fatcat Brits tried to play you.
Now you're being played by your very own fatcat "government" and corporations that you dumbasses put in place instead of choosing the better systems below. So now you're up against number five again since the history of the world proves this will always become true in time...
GOVERN - to RULE OVER, to TAX, to CONTROL, to ENSLAVE, to FORCE, to MURDER.
MENT - to BRAINWASH your MIND into believeing that you need to be GOVERNED.
That's false belief.
So threaten and use number 5 as needed to fuck all that and fix it for good...
Read up on voluntaryism, libertarianism, anarchism...
Peace, love, progress, freedom from war, and force, and government.
... or we could just make guns harder to buy. And stop encouraging copycats by not making mass shooters and their deeds part of the 24 hour news cycle. Also offer psych treatment for free and have employment policies that don't destroy families.
You know, the way most civilised countries handle it. But, nooooo, we need our guns and our crappy private insurance system... because freedom.
Sadly, making guns harder to buy wont help. That's treating the symptom, not the cause.
What needs to happen is for guns and violence to stop being glorified in American culture. This means admitting the NRA is wrong and the 2nd Amendment does not mean "lasseiz-fair guns for all". It means people changing their attitudes and treating guns as dangerous objects that must be handled with care and precision instead of toys and problem solvers. Gun control will come as a consequence of this change, not a cause of it.
The reason gun control works in Australia and the UK (sorry gun nuts, it does work) is because the Australian and British people saw it was the right thing to do after incidents like Port Arthur (AUS) and Dunblane (UK). We can still own guns here for recreational purposes, but few, if any own them for defensive purposes as they're just not needed in our society. France and Canada have a lot of guns in private hands, but few mass shootings because the French and Canadian attitudes are one of safety and responsibility.
Until the US changes its attitudes on guns and starts laying the blame at the feet of organisations like the NRA instead of deifying them, dead kids are the price you're going to have to pay.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.