A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/lockport-school-district-defies-new-york-education

by edtechstrats • 7 years ago

98 55 7 years ago

grecy• 7 years ago

I look forward to hordes of teenagers pushing back against this - wearing hats, burkas, sunglasses, excessive makeup etc. etc.

At least, I sure hope they will.

whatshisface• 7 years ago

It's already against the rules to cover your face in many schools. Besides, if the system can't recognize you, you will be marked as absent - so the punishment for defeating the surveillance system is the same as the punishment for breaking the rule it's intended to enforce. Those teenagers are dependent on the civic involvement of adults, they can't save themselves.

pjmorris2• 7 years ago

If the system is subject to false positives, students will figure out a way to exploit that, e.g. marked as present when absent via 'masks', Mission Impossible-style.

jdsully2• 7 years ago

In the 90s/2000s we were taunted with a nefarious “permanent record” that recorded all our evil deeds. Do they still use that on students? It even came up in a few Simpson’s episodes.

Somehow I haven’t seen anyone actually be negatively affected by this supposed record.

saagarjha5• 7 years ago

They will, but the school will just make policies outlawing clothing that covers facial features (or may have some already).

magduf• 7 years ago

If they outlaw burqas, they can face lawsuits over religious freedom.

TuringNYC• 7 years ago

I’m pretty sure a simple grape inside each cheek will mess up the facial keypoint lookup

daodedickinson• 7 years ago

Good gravy. I'd go into hiding if there was anywhere left to go. Wish I was religious so I could try to join a monestary.

spraak• 7 years ago

If you're under 25 you could join the Kaua'i Hindu Monastery. https://www.himalayanacademy.com/livespiritually/monastic-li...

kevin_thibedeau• 7 years ago

Just become a pastafarian. You can make up your own creed as you go.

driverdan• 7 years ago

You can buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere for $500. Have fun!

paulvs• 7 years ago

Slightly confusing how although the article's opening paragraph currently says "...an explicit order" from the state education department, it goes on to quote it later where it can be seen to be just a recommendation.

radcon• 7 years ago

I'm so glad I grew up during a time when you didn't have to worry about every single second of your life potentially being captured on video and used for some nefarious purpose.

I can't imagine being a kid in this type of environment. Then again, many of the kids who will be unwillingly subjected to this probably aren't informed enough to understand the potential long-term consequences of pervasive surveillance, which makes it all the more evil.

It's appalling that they spent $1.4 million (so far) on this rather than putting the money towards more useful things like teacher salaries or after-school programs. Maybe if they improved the overall school experience they wouldn't need to monitor the kids like prisoners?

ErikVandeWater3• 7 years ago

Paul Graham has an essay on how (US) school is mostly used as a prison

manfredo2• 7 years ago

"Mostly used as a prison" is a mischaracterization of that essay. The paper identified analogues between prison social behavior and school social behavior, and hypothesized that this shows that these patterns happen whenever a population is put in a society without their choice.

salawat• 7 years ago

Parents.

The time has come to teach your chilluns the virtues of laser pointers, spray paint, and civil disobedience.

It won't take long, I guarantee you.

deogeo2• 7 years ago

The stated aims of the system are easily covertly expanded (and there is ample history to indicate that will happen) to turn the school into a panopticon, building a social graph and personality profile of kids as they grow up.

To me this looks like an openly hostile act.

ErikVandeWater3• 7 years ago

If the kids are allowed to know their "social scores" many of them will compete to get the lowest to be cool. I kind of hope the administrators make this mistake. It would give me great Schadenfreude.

sys_64738• 7 years ago

I thought only Communist China had social scores. Has it spread to the USA too?

beenBoutIT2• 7 years ago

If it allows the school to accurately identify the most promising students it's worth it. How many kids with potential fall through the cracks now?

Bjartr• 7 years ago

All[1] of them. All the kids. They all have the potential for fulfilling lives that contribute to society.

[1] Fine, almost all, there will be exceptions, but the goals of the education system should include making exceptions as rare as possible. At the very least I'll claim a belief that achieving a low enough rate of exceptions so as to make them negligible in practice.

deogeo2• 7 years ago

Slightly better schools are worth this massive police state expansion? We could save many lives lost to crime each year if we forced everyone to wear ankle monitors all the time too - wouldn't that be even more worth it?

rgrieselhuber• 7 years ago

Yet another reason to avoid public schools, if you can.

otakucode• 7 years ago

Because children and adolescents aren't people, they often have surveillance and control technologies tested on them. And when the surveillance and control technologies significantly increase school violence (can you name a school shooting at a school that didn't have cameras?), they conclude that more technology is needed to surveil and control. I imagine it's a booming business.

gumby• 7 years ago

I am reminded of the absurd threat in the film "Rock and Roll High School" that "This will go on your permanent record"

Nowadays it will.

quickben• 7 years ago

A bit incomplete title then. They are also testing legal boundaries, population reaction, and few other things that are morally objectionable.

walterbell• 7 years ago

We need to invent a category of property rights for the results of such testing against non-consenting populations. That would create an economic incentive for lawyers to do what they do best.

We already have legal precedent for paying reparations for undisclosed tests against civilians.

rb808• 7 years ago

No problems from me. NY schools already have a security guard on duty that watches everyone coming and going through the front door. Its not always easy job, anything that can help them would be great.

saagarjha5• 7 years ago

Are you a student?

debacle2• 7 years ago

NY schools already have a security guard on duty that watches everyone coming and going through the front door.

Nope.

LinuxBender• 7 years ago

Did the parents approve the use of the photos by a 3rd party? Were the parents advised of the policies around data retention and data destruction? Will this data remain in the system after the children are adults?

ilamont• 7 years ago

Lockport is an old factory town on the Erie Canal, not far from Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The population is about 20,000 people. North of the city is orchards and farmland, south are the outer suburbs of Buffalo. It's not a place known for high tech, nor is it known for high municipal spending.

The backstory of how this came about would surely be interesting.

souterrain2• 7 years ago

A plausible story is that Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County, NY, which has three land (bridge) crossings with Canada, and therefore has significant USCIS presence throughout the county. I can imagine a joint task force involving county law enforcement and USCIS. Most schools in NY State have armed police (“school resource officer”) present. They probably all go to the same sporting events, drink at the same pubs.

Nothing like a refreshing beverage and discussing pervasive surveillance technology for the youth of America.

debacle2• 7 years ago

Lockport is not the county seat of Niagara County. It's a dilapidated, failing school district that's experiencing a huge amount of wealth flight as it's situated ~10 mins from two quite prominent school districts.

misiti3780• 7 years ago

Fun Fact: Chris Sacca is from Lockport and graduated from Lockport High School. Timothy McVeigh is also from there.

kwhitefoot• 7 years ago

Why don't schools concentrate on education?

A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

Related Stories