School district adds facial recognition of sex offenders to ROC.ai surveillance system

A school district located in the U.S. state of West Virginia is building out its facial recognition system, adding the ability to cross-reference face images captured on campuses with the state’s sex-offender database.

Biometric verification company Rank One Computing, which was hired in the spring by Marion County Schools to deploy a district-wide surveillance system, is adding automated checks against the some of the records of people found guilty of sex-related crimes.

The district is a state and national early adopter of facial recognition on campuses.

According to reporting by the Times West Virginian, the algorithm only accesses the state police images of people convicted of crimes that would be a threat to children.

The county school board also has decided it wants new capabilities including license-plate reading and object recognition. The Times said that the $40,000 to $50,000 deployment cost was built into the ROC.ai facial recognition software the board originally bought.

ROC.ai’s technology has been deployed in 54 schools in West Virginia, according to a company announcement.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  criminal ID  |  facial recognition  |  ROC  |  schools  |  video surveillance  |  West Virginia