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."
So we have to compete with China in creepiness?
Table-ized A.I.
any time one of the "top 10" most popular guns
That is going to be a lot of fun for the kids. Better than eating tide pods. "Trigger the cams!"
The coolest kids will be the ones who figure out the most clever ways of triggering the system.
If someone is inside the school with a gun, it's too damn late. Want to fix school shootings? Put a waiting period on all gun purchases to allow the mentally ill to "cool off." Stop publicizing the names and activities of school shooters. Publicity encourages copycats -- this is a well-known phenomenon with suicides as well. And God forbid people have access to free mental health care, and we enact policies like limits on working hours and vacation time that actually keep family support networks together vs driving them apart. But nooooo ... we have our FREEDOM in America.
How about you send an alert for ANY firearm instead??
Shootings "carried out by current students or alumnae"?
Alumnae is a group of female graduates. I'm not aware of any school shootings carried out by a group of female graduates, but admittedly I don't keep track of all of them. On the other hand, alumni is the plural noun for a group of male graduates or male and female graduates.
And as the summary points out, what do you do when the system detects a school shooting?
It's often said that the only was to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
And it was shown in the Parkland shooting that the police weren't those good guys with guns.
Why must we relish every bad idea that comes along? Why?
gun control in the United States. School shooters are a profit center. Instead of spending money on teaches and classroom supplies we are spending money on security theater. If we ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, as they have done in Australia, we could protect school children and the rest of us.
company getting a fat contract. That's what all these solutions to school shootings that aren't gun control and expanded healthcare are. It's worse than doing nothing. At least nothing is free.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
the Onion said it all https://www.theonion.com/it-s-...
I literally did laugh out loud when I read this.
An excerpt from Cory Doctorow's Little Brother story:
I moved down the corridor lightly and sprightly, keeping my gait even and measured for the gait recognition cameras. These had been installed only a year before, and I loved them for their sheer idiocy. Beforehand, we'd had face recognition cameras covering nearly every public space in school, but a court ruled that was unconstitutional. So Benson and a lot of other paranoid school administrators had spent our textbook dollars on these idiot cameras that were supposed to be able to tell one person's walk from another. Yeah, right.
I hope somebody challenges the legality of facial recognition (and gait recognition too if it comes to that). As for making a school more secure against an active shooter, it's as useless as security cams and other security theater efforts. The only thing these things are good for are catching vandals, enforcing attendance, and wasting taxpayer money.
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.
Shouldn't they also be using this to give an alert for people they haven't identified? Make a field day at the start of each year, and get pictures of all the guardians or some such.
I don't think you'll have any problem with suspended students trying to sneak back into school.
"But please Principal! I really want to go to class!
Out of school suspension for a teenage misfit is equivalent to forced paid leave for a professional. Might as well call it vacation.
nothing worth going there for. Not with Cell phones and all...
[($)]
To which country does this statement refer:
any time one of the "top 10" most popular guns used in school shootings appears in view
Is it
A) Brazil
B) Estonia
C) Kenya
D) The USA
Sex Offender recognition? Great idea - lets install these in our Catholic Schools and see which teachers decide to call in sick.
Glass over the counter in a deli is racist in some counties. But this is going to be OK
obviously all these advanced technologies are the right thing to do, and they will be very effective.
this couldn't be solved any other way, like adjusting current laws/rights etc
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
... to "America First?"
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
... schools pay shit wages to teachers and big bucks to foreigners for something that is not likely to happen and not likely to work when it does.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
How much would it cost to issue each child a Chromebook and have them telecommute from home? All of your flashy shiny technology looks good on paper and I'm sure it makes you feel like a kid with a brand new toy. But the best way to prevent a MASS shooting, is to remove the mass. And if things really aren't so bad that you would consider this as an option, then I guess they really aren't all that bad.
When I hear these stories out of the USA about how to prevent school shootings I don't know whether to laugh or cry. But I think it's mostly cry.
...and spare me the "Canada is different" argument. Culturally, Canada and the USA are very, very similar.
I live in Canada.
When my kids go to school they don't go through metal detectors or deal with facial recognition. Their backpacks aren't transparent and the only 'drills' they do are for earthquake and fire. There are no bullet-proof shelters in their classroom, no armed guards at the school and no debate about arming teachers.
Why? Because Canada HAS GUN CONTROL.
Get your act together, America. Protect your kids.
Meanwhile, all that funding that should have gone to improve actual educational resources for the students is instead wasted on a "defense system" that probably won't defend against anything.
Yeah, I think a lot of people forget that learning in schools is not strictly academic. There's emotional, social and physical learning as well. The ability to empathize with another, to follow directions, to cooperate and collaborate, to manage social structures and people more or less well liked than you, etc.
Gen X isn't perfect, but no generation has a monopoly on coming up with bad ideas (although Millennials and Gen Y seem to making a good effort). As for your idea of taking the 'mass' out of mass shooting, you have a very good point. Kids can largely be educated online for subjects such as math, science, reading/writing, history, social studies, etc. The only subjects that require a physical class are science lab, PE, and some of the arts (theater, music).
Stop publicizing school shootings!
You don't agree with me? Here's my reasoning: First take a look at this article and see what the shooter had to say in his videos before the shooting took place. He's clearly looking forward to the attention and notoriety he's going to get from it. This is the way the minds of these sick fucks work: they think they've been wronged, they think the world owes them, they think that they're going to be 'heroes' when they commit their act of mass murder, and even though they're likely going to either be shot to death by police or die in prison, they're basking in the attention and the idea that they'll be the stars of the press for weeks and months. Each school shooter that is publicized is enabling the next shooter, and so on, and so on, as they all want their shot at fame and glory; WE NEED TO DENY THEM THAT.
There needs to be a gag order in place on these. The press needs to be denied access to information. The arrests, the trials, they all need to be closed-door with gag orders in place so the proceedings are entirely secret. When they put them in prison, it needs to be done silently, they need to be put in solitary permanently, not allowed to talk to ANYONE so there's no leaks. If there is no payoff to the shooters then my theory is most of the shootings won't happen because there won't be any reward for doing it.
Online education lacks the ability to raise a hand and ask a question. Yeah, you can ask later, but I for one am sufficiently ADHD and disorganized that I probably would have forgotten my questions.
Alumnae, feminine plural, nominative. All the shooters who were graduates were female?
They word you are looking for is "Alumni".
Latin, motherfuckers. Do you speak it?