You knew this would happen. Security corporations are selling the latest thing to schools worried about shootings.
Lockport, New York, bought a facial recognition system that is programmed to identify the students and teachers who belong and to identify the criminals and sexual predators who are in its data system.
Next school year, Lockport schools will have in place the kind of security software used at airports, casinos and sensitive government installations.
Facial recognition and tracking software will add an unprecedented level of security at the schools. District officials have decided locked entrance doors, bullet-proof glass and sign-in registers at the front desk are not enough.
“We always have to be on our guard. We can’t let our guard down,” Lockport Superintendent Michelle T. Bradley said. “That’s the world that we’re living in. Times have changed. For the Board of Education and the Lockport City School District, this is the No. 1 priority: school security.”
Depew schools want to install the same system, as soon as a state funding request is approved.
“When it comes to safety and security, we want to have the best possible,” Depew Superintendent Jeffrey R. Rabey said. “From what I’ve seen, there’s no other like it.”
Studies have shown the technology doesn’t always work well, but the consultant to the district says a Canadian company has worked out the bugs that plagued earlier facial recognition software.
“Lockport will be the first school district in the world with this technology deployed,” said Tony Olivo, an Orchard Park security consultant who helped develop the system.
The software is used by “Scotland Yard, Interpol, the Paris police and the French Ministry of Defense,” Olivo said. “There are a lot of facial recognition systems out there. There is nothing in the world that can do what this technology does.”
Lockport will spend $1.4 million of the state’s money on the Aegis system, from SN Technologies of Ganonoque, Ont., in all 10 district buildings this summer. It’s part of a $2.75 million security system that includes 300 digital video cameras.
Lockport played a role in the system’s development. Olivo said in the summer of 2015, the software creators used Lockport High School for test videos featuring various types of guns.
Rabey said that because Depew has three buildings on one campus, rather than 10 different locations as Lockport has, Depew would need only 75 cameras, and the cost would be $188,000.
“We believe it’s innovative. We believe it’s an investment. And it’s meant to intercept unwanted people and items,” Bradley said.
But Jim Shultz, a Lockport parent, calls the upgrade a waste of money. And it won’t prevent a school shooting. He said the district would at best gain a few seconds in response time if a crazed killer rushed into a Lockport school with an AR-15.
The new system does not have X-ray.
It can’t detect metal, concealed weapons or explosives.
What it can do is alert officials if someone whose photo has been programmed into the system – a registered sex offender, wanted criminal, non-custodial parent, expelled student or disgruntled former employee – comes into range of one of the 300 high-resolution digital cameras.
“A school is now a target, unfortunately,” said Robert L. LiPuma, Lockport’s technology director. “Based on recommendations, things we saw, drills we did, pilots we did, we assessed all of that and we thought this was the best option, economically and responsibly, for the safety of our community.”
If a known bad guy is spotted, or a gun or other weapon is visible to the system’s cameras, the software could flash an alarm to any district officials connected to it, and also to police.
In the last five years, all of the major school shootings in the U.S. have been carried out by current or recent students of the school in question.
At the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, the shooter was a mentally ill 20-year-old who shot his way through a locked entrance door before killing 20 children and employees. Police arrived five minutes after the killer entered.
Failed recognition
Studies have shown that commercially available facial recognition software simply doesn’t work very well.
Researchers have discovered that it works well only on white men and is much less effective on people of color, women and children.
In one of the most drastic examples, facial recognition software was tested last June on the crowd at a championship soccer game in Cardiff, Wales. The system triggered 2,470 alerts for matches with a police database – but 92 percent of the “matches” turned out to be false. The police blamed the poor quality of the photos in the database.
If the shooter is a current student, the system will not identify him. It would have been no help in Columbine or Santa Fe, Texas.
The system will have the capacity to track students’ movements in the building.
A good way to prepare for life in a surveillance state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And so the training of young people to accept and expect intrusive surveillance continues.
How long before the kids are forced to wear Fitbit-type monitors, in order to “pre-emptively” enforce discipline and punish ThoughtCrime?
If only there were a way to convince kids to voluntarily carry around a device that could track their location, the conversations they have, what they do on the Internet . . . .
“If the shooter is a current student, the system will not identify him.”
Why not?
Oh, I suppose it would identify the student but the fact of that identification would not trigger any red-flag alert, because of course someone identified as a current student would be in the building.
The article says the software will not recognize current students. It is programmed to recognize people who are on various lists as potential or actual criminals.
Although you also wrote that the software has the capacity to track students’ movements in the building. Unclear to me how that squares.
All students have their pictures taken and the pictures are in the software used to take attendance. It’s only a short jump for them to be recognized, too.
If the machine recognizes students, it does not mean it will recognize them as a threat
Do you know what the best “face recognition technology” there is?
A human being!
Hmmm, perhaps if we had more human beings in the schools, you know like aides, sped teachers, counselors, nurses, etc. . . so that we could lower class size to a truly appropriate level, we wouldn’t have a need to spend a minor fortune on a “security system”.
And again, another prime example of adminimal behavior in even considering such a system: ““We always have to be on our guard. We can’t let our guard down,” Lockport Superintendent Michelle T. Bradley said. “That’s the world that we’re living in. Times have changed. For the Board of Education and the Lockport City School District, this is the No. 1 priority: school security.””
If that is Bradley’s #1 priority, what the hell is he doing being a supe adminimal. Adminimal is as adminimal does. A scared shitless “We can’t let our guard down” decision. Scared shitless decisions are almost always bad ones. Unfortunately, quite typical of adminimal thinking.
As Peter Greene points out ( http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/05/police-state-high-school.html ) facial recognition software performs notoriously poorly with female and minority faces.
What could possibly go wrong?
and both females and minorities KNOW this…but, much like so many other things created or researched or put into practice, because it will not likely hit White Males with problematic mis-identification, we will hear only that it works
I wonder if the supe adminimal has a good friend who works in the school security sector? Wonder how much the kickback is?
Research to find out whether or not this type of security system works has been unfunded. Why jump to spend money on something that hasn’t proven to work?
What a waste of money!! Does this school district have class sizes of 16, a full arts department, librarians with a budget to purchase new books every year, a full time nurse in every school, enough social workers, medical help for students needing care if their parents are poor, etc., etc., etc.
I read that some security companies are looking into bullet resistant backpacks and bullet proof vests. There’s gold in them thar hills for security. That will mean big bucks to buy off more politicians.
……
Bulletproof Whiteboards And The Marketing Of School Safety…NPR
May 4, 2013 6:02 AM ET
LIZ HALLORAN
A recent news item out of Minnesota caught our eye: “Bulletproof Whiteboards Unveiled at Rocori Schools.”
Bulletproof what? Where?
That would be whiteboards, at the small central Minnesota Rocori School District, which will spend upward of $25,000 for the protective devices produced by a company better known for its military armor products.
“The timing was right,” Rocori school board Chairwoman Nadine Schnettler tells us. “The company is making these in response to the Newtown shooting, and has been making similar products for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The $300, 18-by-20-inch whiteboards, produced by Maryland-based Hardwire LLC, “will be an additional layer of protection” for students and teachers, she says…
After 911 my district invested in an exterior door locking system and some security cameras. After 8:30 all the doors were locked, but students and staff could still exit in case of fire. The front door was locked, and visitors had to get clearance from the secretary that would buzz legitimate people in. It seemed to work well. I have no idea of the cost, but it has to be a lot less than “state of the art” technology. Security will eat up the budget.
Was even that much really necessary? Were there any incidents before those measures were implemented? Did those measures actually stop any problems from occurring?
I’m old enough to remember when members of the public could walk right into a public school. I’m pretty sure none of us were abducted or shot or anything.
There’s been an unhealthy decline in risk tolerance over my lifetime. And risk intolerance seems to have a symbiotic relationship with technology.
Agreed, FLERP! Homo sapiens used to live in caves and trees and hunt for their own food and survive massive predators. Now we can’t let our children out the front door without constant security because “it’s not safe!!!”
The good thing about living in caves and trees was that no one had guns.
Don’t tell that to the NRA. They’ll use it as evidence that guns decrease violence. (I’m assuming, based on common sense and my reading of Pinker’s “Angels of Our Better Nature,” that violence rates in “cave man” times were higher than they are now in the US.)
The worst situation we had was a father the did not have custody trying to pick up his son. He could not enter the building, but he broke a pane of glass in the outer door and caused a ruckus. The secretary called the police that dealt with the man. It was fortunate that he was stopped. If he had entered, the situation could have escalated.
It’s not guns that have caused our extreme rise in “safety” consciousness. It was September 11. After September 11 it became perfectly normal to practically disrobe to get on a flight. It became normal to “show your papers” to get into many office other public buildings. Metal detectors, cameras, security guards, bulletproof glass locked entries, and other “security” measures previously seen only in inner city schools became common place in schools. It became understood that kids “needed” cell phones because what if there was another terrorist event and parents and students need to get a hold of/find each other? Which in turn led to the expectation that parents should know where their kids are at every second and, better yet, should be actively supervising them. Cable news has certainly helped with this process, but I’m not sure it could have happened without the overwhelming fear inducing catastrophe of September 11.
The good news is that the world is safer now than it has ever been. Here are some statistics: https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-23/world-actually-safer-ever-and-heres-data-prove
Steven Pinker has been arguing this for a while. Here is an interview: https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/486311030/despite-the-headlines-steven-pinker-says-the-world-is-becoming-less-violent
I guess you never lost a child to gun violence.
I have not lost a child to gun violence. Nor have I lost a child to cholera, malaria, diphtheria, scarlet fever, or influenza. Malaria only killed an estimated 429,000 people in 2016. This was a huge improvement over the estimated 829,000 killed by malaria in 2000. Of course, those were mostly people outside the United States, but even counting them as 3/5 of a person, as is traditional in the US, a significant improvement.
Becker, you are a hard man. You utterly lack compassion or heart. I don’t like your snarky comments. I don’t like the way you come on to this blog to shoot down other people, including me. If you have nothing positive to say, shut up.
Dr. Ravitch,
I think you misunderstand the point of my post. The world today is better than it was 20 years ago. It is much better than it was 50 years ago. Do you disagree?
In some ways, better. I will soon be 80. I’ve lived to see good changes, esp in end of legalized segregation. In some ways, worse. Never in history have we had such an ignorant, lying, stupid fool as president. I never felt as ashamed to be an American as I am today. This con man makes Nixon and George W look like scholars by contrast.
Diane, I stand with you on that decision. Every single day is one more proof that Trump is stupid, ignorant, unfit, corrupt and is actively working to destroy our democracy. I have a friend who has given up listening to the news because so many days of rot keep filling our airwaves. I haven’t given up because that is something we can’t do. I am sick of it.
Perhaps it would be useful to list the ways in which you think the world is better than it was 50 years ago. I can give an extensive list, though it would not include the current president.
The fact that you have never been more ashamed to be an American is perhaps a measure of our progress. I recently saw Trevor Noah talk about race in America. He said that an elderly white person in the US apologized to him about race relations here, suggesting that recent events might cause Trevor to go back home. Trevor, as someone whose very existence was illegal, said that the US does not have the best racists in the world. The best were back home.
Take comfort that the arch of history is long, but it bends towards justice. The evidence is there, if you have the eyes to see it.
That would be an interesting exercise, but why don’t you do it?
I’m writing a new book and making great progress.
Ever the last 30 years, extreme global poverty has been cut in half. But 90-percent of that took place in one country, China. The U.S., on the other hand, has about 1 of 4 children living in poverty, the highest ratio among developed nations.
Fifty years ago in 1968, the prison population in the U.S. was less than 200,000. Today it is more than two million thanks to Nixon’s war on drugs and President Ray-Gun doubling down on that war. In fact, the US has the largest prison population in the world with China in second place with a huge gap between the US and China but China has more than four times the total population.
In 1968, the incarceration rate was 94 per 100,000
Today it is 737 per 100,000
China is 118 per 100,000
But according to the US media, China is an authoritarian country.
Thanks to China the world probably is a better place than it was 50 years ago, but not thanks to the U.S.
Lloyd,
I agree that there are far to many people incarcerated. Perahaps you would like to join forces with Charles Koch in opposing this (see https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/overcriminalization-of-america-113991)
Yet there are many other aspect of the country that are improved. Take for example gay rights. At one time I was the ONLY person posting here saying that the advance of gay rights, including marriage, was significant. You did not include it in your list. Is that because you think it insignificant?
Teaching Economist,
I can assure you that you were not the first person on this blog to note the significance of gay marriage.
I would NOT join Charles Koch to scrub out a toilet. Charles and David have earend a seat in Dante’s 4th circle of hell or maybe the 9th.
teachingeconomist: Gay rights has improved. But look at how many states, and Congress, are working at ways to chip away this right. Think about Pence and what he stands for…the ‘religious’ right. ‘Marriage is a right between a man and a woman.’
It is the same way with Roe vs. Wade. The original law has been beaten to death over and over again.
Congress and the states are chipping away. Now with the far, far, far right judges being appointed I hate to think of what will happen.
Dr. Ravitch,
I do not think that is true. At the very least, when I argued that it was an important milestone in the progress of the country, no one else suggested that was true.
Teaching Economist,
I announced my marriage to my partner of 30 years on this blog. You are really annoying. I’m tempted to say something stronger but I won’t. Next you will tell me that you care more about my children than I do.
TE,
This blog is not a forum to discuss my personal life or yours. It is a blog about education, rarely other issues. I don’t invite discussion of defense policy, international affairs, abortion, or other interesting topics unless they relate to education. I am once again blocking you as you have no sense of boundaries or propriety. Adios.
“Lockport will be the first school district in the world with this technology deployed,” said Tony Olivo, an Orchard Park security consultant who helped develop the system.”
Oh, Lockport. You don’t want to be first. Wait until some other dummy tests it out.
Weapon’s regulation wouldn’t cost public schools a dime.
Just something for school administrators to think about.
Don’t accept the costs tacked onto public school budgets when politicians fail to address the out of school issues. Stop doing that. If politicians want you to solve the gun problem (along with all the problems they dump on public schools), insist they allocate funding for each new problem they’re dumping on you.
Don’t volunteer to be a mental health clinic in addition to a school unless they pay for it- if they don’t pay for it you’re shortchanging your students on educational issues, which, after all, is what schools are for.
These problems they’re shoving off on schools because they’re too lazy or corrupt to deal with them outside of school? They’re expensive. Get the money first.
That would be terrific, but politicians rarely allocate the full amount to fund a mandate. Security is not a mandate, yet.
Yes, indeed, Chiara: why regulate access to guns when you still sell all the guns you want, and simultaneously herd everyone through fear into accepting and paying for these intrusions and boondoggles?
It’s a self-licking ice cream cone…
I seem to have a memory that the Arnold Foundation is involved with the development of this type of technology and pressuring the public policy that governs it?
I did some research into face recognition software and how to defeat it (for something I am currently writing), and facial recognition software can be easily defeated without a lot of expense. It’s not foolproof and the info is easy to find on Google or YouTube.
Yes to Lloyd.
I looked at the website of the company that received the contract for security. The company specializes in software and devices for “facial, shape and pattern recognition.”
SN Tech has a partnership CSI Group LLC in New York. The LLC specializes in Risk and Threat Assessments and Security Planning as well as comprehensive Investigative Services (So far as I can tell, the only client is SN Tech and its Aegis program).
From the website: The Aegis suite of applications includes:
Sentry–a facial recognition tool that operates “on the fly” and will 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. (Note that this is really a limited list of potential threats from people).
Protector is a shape recognition tool that will alert school officials if any of the top 10 guns used in school shootings are recognized within the school – semi automatic and revolver handguns, pump shotguns and an AR 15 type rifle. (Note that this does not protect against modified guns, knives, pipe and other bombs such as those in the Columbine massacre).
Mercury a forensic search engine that will be able to review video unattended and search for specific people. (Of greatest value is the “review” is a real time view, not after the fact).
Also at the website:
The aim of “Selective Intrusion Detection…is to detect and characterize intrusions by people in critical zones such as computer labs or storage areas to trigger alarms. This makes it possible to monitor perimeter zones or so-called critical zones.” (Including locations with all exterior doors, fire alarms? art rooms? the cafeteria?)
“Extraction Of Clues From Images. The first hours of an investigation are vital. This solution enables investigators to save valuable time by carrying out an initial analysis on bulk images by automatically extracting key persons of interest identified by investigators, such as a facial characteristic. The solution filters out images not matching the criteria and directs investigators to the most likely images.” (After the fact follow-up for law enforcement).).
The software and devices for surveillance offered by SN Technologies do not appear to be owned by this self-described two-person “entrepreneurial” company. The owners are Cameron Uhren, President and Partner along with Partner K.C. Flynn. These are the only people listed as personnel. Cameron Uhren and K.C. Flynn hold five US. patents for computer-based solitaire games (four assigned to Solitaris, Inc.). A third inventor recognized in these patents is Leonard Parente who has also worked in casino gambling. https://patents.justia.com/inventor/cameron-m-uhren and http://www.casinosolitaire.com/Home/About
I have not found any discussion of privacy issues in connection with this contract, who owns the data, charges and discounts, and so on. SA Technologies has a legal team at the ready. Does the school district?
If you are curious about the patent domains for surveillance software here is a starter list.
“Using A Facial Characteristic” Patents (Class 382/118);
“Shape And Form Analysis” Patents (Class 382/203);
“US Patent for Method and device to speed up face recognition Patent (Patent # 9,740,913) of use for analysis of video.
The result of our current thinking is that we are raising a generation of students who are comfortable with the government monitoring them 24/7, working in an environment where they are monitored by armed guards, and being protected from those who might pose a threat based on government screening for mental health.
But creating this “safe” environment is presumably worth it because when they are old enough, these same schoolchildren will be able to acquire any weapons they wish to purchase— that is, unless they “pose a threat”.
And here’s the conundrum: if a school superintendent, school board member, or state politician argued AGAINST “safety measures” like any of the above they would be out of a job or out of office because of their failure to “do something” to stop the violence. As I think most readers believe, the “something” that is needed is to provide more “soft services” in schools: more classroom teachers; more social workers; more counselors… but if one seeks these kinds of initiatives in response to gun violence one is deemed to be soft in the head…
wgersen: “The result of our current thinking is that we are raising a generation of students who are comfortable with the government monitoring them 24/7, working in an environment where they are monitored by armed guards, and being protected from those who might pose a threat based on government screening for mental health.”
I find that extremely frightening. What will happen to creativity, love of leaning, freedom of expression, beauty, compassion or hope? I’d hate to think what such students would come out thinking about life. This is something out of a gross science fiction novel. Creepy!
This morning a local editorial comment noted that hardening a school and posting armed guards was futile if the shooter with a high power rapid fire gun simply waited outside and out of sight until the students left school. Chilling observation.
Laura: Schools will also have to cancel any outdoor sporting events such as baseball and football. Recess has to be indoors. Gym class can never be on the football field. Marching bands will have to stop performing and practicing.
All of this tech stuff will not stop the killing of innocent children when they are with their parents..sidewalks, concerts, church, theaters, or any other place where people gather.
This country is going totally nuts because of the NRA and its jargon about how guns don’t kill. Love of guns is now more important than human lives.
What other function do guns have other than killing?
Can you cook with a gun? Can you drive one? Can you dig with it?
What other function does it have? Either kill or be killed.
The Santa Fe school had two armed officers… but no armed teachers… and what’s even more chilling is the NRA members who see the arming of teachers as the solution…
Diane, thank you for blocking TE! (&, Lloyd, I love your toilet-scrubbing & Dante’s comments to him.)