Science

First public schools in US start using facial recognition on pupils and staff


An Upstate New York school district will turn on its controversial automated surveillance software that can detect guns and identify faces on June 3, 2019.

Lockport City School District was the first in the nation to install the enhanced Aegis camera system in its schools back in October 2018 and will now begin testing it.

The security system is intended to become broadly operational across the district’s high school, middle school and six elementary schools by September 1, 2019.

The Aegis surveillance system can identify guns in the video footage it records and cross-reference people’s faces against its security databases.

The controversial development has attracted pushback from local parents, privacy advocates and some legislators, who say it could invade students’ privacy.

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An Upstate New York school district will turn on its controversial automated surveillance software that can detect guns and identify faces on June 3, 2019 (stock image)

An Upstate New York school district will turn on its controversial automated surveillance software that can detect guns and identify faces on June 3, 2019 (stock image) 

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Each client who installs the system is able to choose which information is loaded into its database. 

They may source the material from local mugshot databases or images of students who have been expelled. 

From there, it scans each face and compares it with the database. 

If there is no match, the system deletes the face it just recorded.

But if it finds a match, it sends a warning to the control centre.  

The upcoming tests will represent ‘an initial implementation phase’ to allow school employees to be trained in the use of the system and to allow officials to make any necessary adjustments to the security setup before a full-scale roll-out, Lockport City School District Superintendent Michelle Bradley told The Hill.

District officials will also be working in tandem with local law enforcement officials in order to establish what procedures should be followed in the event that the Aegis system detects an individual or object of concern on school premises.

However, concerns over the implementation of the system remain.

New York State Assembly Member Monica Wallace, a Democrat, is pushing forward a bill that would effectively prevent the Lockport City School District from using the automated surveillance system.

Acknowledging the controversy, Ms Bradley noted that the system is ‘not something that is prohibited right now for us.’

‘We have a policy that intends to protect privacy,’ she added.

‘We have identified a small group of individuals who will be placed in a database.’     

The district is using a system developed by SN Technologies Corp., the parent company of Aegis, according to Motherboard.

Aegis has developed proprietary software that can be used to spot guns that might appear in video footage. 

On its website, the firm describes the tech as being able to be used ‘to alert school officials if anyone from the local Sex Offenders Registry enters a school or if any suspended students, fired employees, known gang members or an affiliate enters a school.’ 

Each client who chooses to install the system, in this case Lockport, is able to choose what information is loaded into its database. 

They may get material from local mugshot databases or use images of former students who are barred from campus.  

To get the system up and running, Lockport is installing or updating about 417 cameras across six elementary schools, one middle school, one high school and one administration building, Motherboard said.  

Lockport City School District is using a system made by SN Technologies Corp., the parent company of Aegis. Pictured is Lockport High School, which is installing several cameras

Lockport City School District is using a system made by SN Technologies Corp., the parent company of Aegis. Pictured is Lockport High School, which is installing several cameras

The school district used $1.4 million (£1.77m) that was allocated to it through New York’s Smart Schools Bond Act to install the Aegis system, the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal reported.

Its grant application details why it decided to move forward with bringing facial recognition tech to several schools across the district. 

According to Motherboard, the application said it wanted funds for ‘new cameras and wiring…to provide viewing and automated facial and object recognition of live and recorded surveillance video,’ plus ‘additional surveillance servers…to provide enhanced storage of recorded video and processing.’ 

KC Flynn, head of SN Technologies, told Motherboard that 20 other US school districts were considering moving forward with Aegis’ facial recognition technology. 

Once users build a database of potential security threats, the system is set up.

It scans each face and compares it with the database. If there is no match, the system deletes the face it just recorded, but if it finds a match, it sends a warning to the control centre.

Many say it could give schools a couple extra minutes of much-needed lead time if an unwanted person is on campus — especially if they are armed.  

The system works by scanning each face and comparing it with the database. If there is no match, it deletes the face, but if a match is found the system alerts the control centre

The system works by scanning each face and comparing it with the database. If there is no match, it deletes the face, but if a match is found the system alerts the control centre

HOW DOES FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY WORK?

Facial recognition is increasingly used as way to access your money and your devices.

When it comes to policing, it could soon mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment.

Faces can be scanned at a distance, generating a code as unique as your fingerprints. 

This is created by measuring the distance between various points, like the width of a person’s nose, distance between the eyes and length of the jawline.

Facial recognition systems check more than 80 points of comparison, known as ‘nodal points’, combining them to build a person’s faceprint.

These faceprints can then be used to search through a database, matching a suspect to known offenders.

Facial recognition is increasingly used as way to access your money and your devices. When it comes to policing, it could soon mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment (stock)

Facial recognition is increasingly used as way to access your money and your devices. When it comes to policing, it could soon mean the difference between freedom and imprisonment (stock)

Facial scanning systems used on personal electronic devices function slightly differently, and vary from gadget to gadget.

The iPhone X, for example, uses Face ID via a 7MP front-facing camera on the handset which has multiple components.

One of these is a Dot Projector that projects more than 30,000 invisible dots onto your face to map its structure.

The dot map is then read by an infrared camera and the structure of your face is relayed to the A11 Bionic chip in the iPhone X, where it is turned into a mathematical model.

The A11 chip then compares your facial structure to the facial scan stored in the iPhone X during the setup process.  

Security cameras use artificial intelligence powered systems that can scan for faces, re-orient, skew and stretch them, before converting them to black-and-white to make facial features easier for computer algorithms to recognise.

Error rates with facial recognition can be as low as 0.8 per cent. While this sounds low, in the real world that means eight in every 1,000 scans could falsely identify an innocent party..

One such case, reported in The Intercept, details how Steven Talley was falsely matched to security footage of a bank robber.

However, critics say the vast number of school shooters are enrolled students, or  people who would not be in the database.

There is also no evidence of the system leading to safer schools.  

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NCLU) has also raised concerns around how the system could be biased against people of colour and women on campus. 

Additionally, documents have shown the district did not engage with the local community before they made the decision to install the system. 

The NCLU also pointed out that, currently, there is no way for the public to access data collected from the cameras, or find out which faces have been fed into the system.  



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