More schools think they see an answer to mass murders in biometric surveillance

Biometrics scanning is the newest technology employed in U.S. primary and secondary schools to prevent children from murdering others with guns.

Unable to change the prevailing gun-on-every-hip argument of self-protection in the United States, schools at all levels have for decades bought systems designed to keep gun danger at a distance off their campuses.

The record of that approach speaks for itself. But given that some school boards and trustees are arming teachers and administrators in the belief that gunfights in the halls will save lives, biometric identification is a rational effort.

To date, most of the news about biometrics being used on campuses has focused on automated payment procedures. Trimble County Public Schools, in Kentucky, for instance has launched its biometric authentication system enabling students to buy meals without worrying if someone has hijacked their account. Parents can opt children out of the fingerprint scans.

That is different, however, from how biometric technology is being readied for schools.

Schools in Marion County, West Virginia, this summer decided to run a pilot program on live facial recognition systems from Rank One Computing, for example.

Over in the Midwest, Oxford (Ohio) High School was the scene of a mass shooting last fall that resulted in four dead students and seven who were injured, including a teacher. The shooter was a 15-year-old student who, when called in for a school meeting with his parents for alarming behavior, carried the gun that would allegedly be used later by the student.

As the new school year starts, biometric scanning kiosks have been set up at three entrances to the high school. There also are abut 100 cameras through the high school through which object recognition software will watch for guns.

Meanwhile, school administers of the San Antonio (Texas) Independent School District reportedly are deploying AI algorithms designed to keep students and staff safe.

San Antonio is one of the major cities of the U.S. Southwest. It also is a neighbor to Uvalde, Texas, a 15,000-person desert community that suffered 21 murders – 19 of which were students – after an 18-year-old man entered an elementary school.

He had spent months posting online about how he was going to murder people and he paid about $5,000 for weapons, accessories and ammunition.

Since those murders, the San Antonio school district has installed a coordinated dispatch system designed to bring some order to crisis management. It also installed facial recognition surveillance cameras that feed matches back to the dispatch center.

Pitched battles over the use of biometric surveillance in schools have occurred.

Article Topics

access control  |  biometrics  |  children  |  facial recognition  |  schools  |  United States  |  video surveillance