This proposal may be problematic because they seem to want to tie it into other computer systems/databases (e.g. state and federal crime, immigration).<p>There's a lot of paranoia about new technology, but the biggest threat isn't strictly from the technology itself, but our use of the resulting data and how it is disseminated.<p>For example fingerprints for lunch payments/library books isn't inherently problematic, it becomes problematic if the fingerprints are stored beyond the student attending the school or sent to others (who could store it indefinitely or misuse it).
Do not judge their actions by their stated intentions. Assume that their actions satisfy their motives perfectly, and look for the set of motives that predicts the<p>If you do that, of course they do belong in schools, and they will stay in schools, because the US is a post-privacy state, and is staging itself to be as authoritarian as the Chinese "social credit" system.<p>What universe are you living in that you think modern American children want to learn? They don't. They didn't want to learn 40 years ago, or any year since. They don't look at public schools as refuge, or as empowerment. They look at it as a requirement, and sometimes a bit like being in jail for 8-14 hours a day.
As I work on what an appropriate computer for three to five-year-old children to work in the classroom I have thought of using facial recognition as opposed to login name and password or barcodes.<p>I also would like to see where the students spend their self-select time to help improve the layout of the room and collect data on what students do for the 90 minutes of free choice.<p>Now I can see how everyone would hate both pieces because of other issues and I feel frustrated.
Absolutely disgusting, there's really not much more nuance to this. I can't fathom a situation where we want to automate what should be human interactions. Talking with children, in person, where they can learn from their mistakes, is a great way to create long lasting discipline. Sure it's hard work, but if we offload this to computers we're actively removing humanity from the situation.
I've never been in the US and stories like this make me imagine it as a bizarre authoritarian dystopia.<p>How are the parents not reacting to this? How is there no law protecting the privacy of workers and children? Why is this not in the front page of a major newspaper?<p>Please do something about this. By the time those technologies trickle down to smaller countries there's very little we can do to counter the external pressure to implement similar "solutions".
Inclined to disagree with the headline (but not article).<p>Schools are exactly where you want this tech - to keep kids, parents & teacher in and the rest of the public out. Leveraging face tech for that is 100% OK.<p>...you just can't have that data leak out in any way. i.e. utilize it for access control & true security only.
You will always find a use for surveillance, and in capitalism there is a natural incentive for those developing these technologies to find all the possible uses and push them aggressively and handwave objections. At this very moment there are thousands of sales people pitching it.<p>But this is where civil society and principles like democracy, liberty and privacy step in to temper the worst impulses and greed.<p>Unfortunately that tempering mechanism is currently nonoperational and anybody with a tag of 'business' with zero interest other than profits can sell any malicious technology and lobby for it. Everything has consequences, and unintended consequences, most of these principles are lessons learned over hundreds of years and it will be tragic to let petty self interest continue to dilute and diminish them.
The perpetrators of school shootings were often expelled before they went on their sprees. Wouldn't you want technology to recognize the faces of expelled students and other people who do not belong in a school?
I can think of a few use cases. Identify when non custodial parents are on campus. When sex offenders are in the area. Identifying drug dealers that target school children. Identifying arsonists, vandals, kids triggering emergency systems. It might even be used to track bullying, tardiness, and absenteeism which is less workload on understaffed teachers.<p>If it was all confined to local systems and access was limited to a few authorized persons it may make parents a lot more comfortable and give them solid data for parenting.