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Privacy Education

Phoenix School to Install Face Scanners 361

Posted by michael from the think-of-the-children dept.
I'm Spartacus! writes "CNN reports that a Phoenix middle school is intstalling face recognition scanners to help locate missing children and identify sex offenders. Civil Libertarians are justifiably concerned."
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Phoenix School to Install Face Scanners More

Phoenix School to Install Face Scanners

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  • Well... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lamery ( 598414 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:01AM (#7709119)
    If any missing children show up at the school, we're covered.

  • Why the concern? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by randyest ( 589159 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:02AM (#7709124) Homepage
    Two cameras, which are expected to be operational next week, will scan faces of people who enter the office at Royal Palm Middle School. They are linked to state and national databases of sex offenders, missing children and alleged abductors.

    Easy, if you're a sex offender (or a missing child that would like to remain missing), don't enter that school. They were nice enough to warn you in advance!

    • Re:Why the concern? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:08AM (#7709141) Journal
      How many sex offenders could possibly have been on the grounds of that school? Apparently, that occurs frequenly enough to warrant this...

      • You joking?? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:14AM (#7709172)
        The whole "no sex offenders within xx distance of school grounds" is a joke. Sure, maybe it's necessary and a good idea, but it's still a joke.

        I've read more stories about guys being arrested for shopping at a store that happens to a lot behind a small daycare center getting arrested and thrown in jail for 5 years... I've never read about one wandering the halls of a school. Maybe there are some stupid enough to do that... but... sheesh. We need $10,000 machines to tell us there's a man wandering the halls who isnt' a teacher?

        Oh... you know what just occurred to me... sex offenders ARE allowed to have kids, right? Are they not allowed to go talk to their kids' teachers? hmmm....

        Stewey
        • " The whole "no sex offenders within xx distance of school grounds" is a joke. Sure, maybe it's necessary and a good idea, but it's still a joke.

          I've read more stories about guys being arrested for shopping at a store that happens to a lot behind a small daycare center getting arrested and thrown in jail for 5 years... I've never read about one wandering the halls of a school."

          I gues that mean that "no sex offenders within xx distance of school grounds"
          is working. ;)
    • Easy, if you're a sex offender (or a missing child that would like to remain missing), don't enter that school.

      Assuming this system actually works in the first place. Something similar was pulled in Florida, after proving useless.

  • so.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AnimeEd ( 670271 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:05AM (#7709129)
    not a joke or anything but does it mean sex offenders are not allowed into schools??

  • Hrmm.. who thought this out? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Terragen ( 727874 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:06AM (#7709132)
    Two cameras, which are expected to be operational next week, will scan faces of people who enter the office at Royal Palm Middle School. They are linked to state and national databases of sex offenders, missing children and alleged abductors.

    If these "missing children" are "entering the office" - how missing are they really?

    Do you need a camera to tell you that the kid has been found?

    • Re:Hrmm.. who thought this out? (Score:4, Informative)

      by DeionXxX ( 261398 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:17AM (#7709191)
      Many children are kidnapped from their legal guardians then tricked (i.e.: brainwashed) into believing that their parents don't want them or are dead or something like that. It usually happens in families where one parent has custody and the other parent would do anything to be with their child... (i.e. kidnap them).

    • Re:Hrmm.. who thought this out? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:21AM (#7709203) Journal
      Wow, sheltered much?

      It does happen that a child will be abducted by a parent who, for one reason or another, does not have legal custody. Because the child is with someone who is their parent, they will not necessarily know that something is wrong, apart from what lie the abductor told them and that they might have no reason not to believe. They could be moved to another state or country, sent to school, and go about their life. They would still be "missing", and could still be in danger.
      • It does happen that a child will be abducted by a parent who, for one reason or another, does not have legal custody.

        I would be surprised if this system would be able to do a facial match on these kids based on the family photos that the family provided to law enforcement. It's unlikely that they have any good "driver's license" (digital on a particular background, full face) photos.

        They would still be "missing", and could still be in danger.

        Missing yes. But if they are going to school, I'm a lot less

  • What's the difference... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bif Powell ( 726774 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:06AM (#7709133)
    ...between this and a cop with a really good memory standing around? Other than the cop would probably have a better hit (less false positives) ratio.
    • Same thing that's wrong with a cop using a tracking device on your vehicle without a warrant as opposed to them following you.
      • Er, the tracking device touches your car. I don't think the face recognition scanner isn't the sort of scanner that you have to press your face up to to get an image.

        :)
        • Hmmmmmm... so as long as they don't touch your stuff, they can spy on you all you want?

          lol

          neat.

          *whips out some TEMPEST equipment*

          Stewey
          • It's legal to photograph persons on public property or your own private property. I'm unaware of any laws that prevent you from comparing such photos to others to try to identify you.

            Why would that be a problem for anyone?
            • As far as I know, there are laws in many states prohibiting the photographing of children without the parent's permission.

              Am I wrong?

              In addition, there are regulations about how someone's photograph can be used without that person's consent?

              Can I go around tape recording people in public places to try and pick out criminals? That's illegal, right?

              But because pictures never had any inherent "automatic" value in terms of information, they've never been an issue. When you bring in a database, isn't it l
              • > As far as I know, there are laws in many states prohibiting the photographing of
                > children without the parent's permission.
                > Am I wrong?

                I do believe that is wrong. If anything, maybe change 'many' to 'a couple' because alot states that I know of have no such law, and it doesnt seem likely that more than one or two states would agree on such a law really.

                > In addition, there are regulations about how someone's photograph can be used
                > without that person's consent?

                Yup, I believe it falls

    • We had one of those (Score:5, Interesting)

      by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:19AM (#7709196)
      my highschool had one of those. He sat in a chair by the office near the front entrance for the busiest part of the day. I think he also did work with parole officers for the trouble-kids and worked with DHS sometimes on cases involving kids at the school. He knew all the kids by name. I never talked to him, but he knew me. He must have studied yearbooks.

      In all, I found him creepy. I would rather he wasn't there, but seeing how I lived fairly close to Columbine Highschool, I'm sure all the soccer moms couldn't sleep without knowing our school basically had a tax-payer provided armed guard.

      Stewey

    • What's the difference between this and a cop with a really good memory standing around?

      Scalability. There are only so many cops. Police are a finite resource, cameras aren't. No matter how many bigwigs remind us that we're living in a "post 9/11 world" or "uncertain times," this will always be a truth. There aren't enough cops to post two in the office of every school, or one on every streetcorner, or one at every traffic light to make sure no one goes through on red. Why is that a problem? Why does it need

  • Is it just me? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zeroprime ( 732475 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:09AM (#7709145) Homepage
    But why would there be enough non-faculty, non-parent adults entering a school that they would need something like this?
    I'm assuming that the children aren't sex offenders.

  • Fun with false positives (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sneftel ( 15416 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:09AM (#7709148)
    Let this be a clarion call to all those Phoenix middle school students out there: Print out a photo of Jeffrey Dahmer and tape it to your backpack. Fun for the whole class!

  • Slippery slopes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:09AM (#7709149)
    The reason civil libertarians are upset is not that a school wishes to protect it's kids, but that this can serve as a precedent for other such actions in more public places.

    Read this and tell me if it doesn't turn your skin:

    CNN reports that Phoenix City Hall is intstalling face recognition scanners to help prevent tax evasion and identify those misusing building permits.

    Sure, it's well down the road in terms of "extreme privacy invasion"... just short of the face recognition cameras installed on city streets (wasn't that tried already somewhere?)

    Since when were face recognition scanners accurate enough (and the databases complete enough) to expect to identify a stray sex-offender?

    What is a sex offender anyway? A kid I knew in highschool was a registered sex offender because he kicked his little brother in the balls while they were wrestling and they decided to go tothe doctor to get him checked out. The Doctor said he was obligated to report it to social services or he could face charges himself. Social Services reported it to the police and they convicted the high school kid for Sexual Assault on a Child (because he DID exactly what the law defines - to intentionally touch a child's groin area). He's now a lifetime registered sex offender (as is mandatory under the law) and he's on probation for 10 years.

    I can't wait until they put these things in the airport! *scoffs*

    Stewey

    • "A kid I knew in highschool..."

      Well if you knew a guy who knew a guy who told a story in high school...IT MUST BE TRUE! Thanks for the anecdote.

      As for the city hall, I don't have a problem with that either. Whats the difference between requiring a photo ID and a full search at the door to the city hall? This is common in major metropolis' now. I'm supposed to be worried about someone taking my picture at that point? I cower in fear.
      • I knew a guy who stood in front of a jury and cried while they read "we find the defendant guilty"

        Thank you for YOUR anicdote.

        I have been arrested and falsely charged with a crime myself. Fortunately, I was able to hire a good lawyer or I would have likely been wrongly convicted myself.

        I'm no fan of the justice system as it stands now.

    • A kid I knew in highschool was a registered sex offender because he kicked his little brother in the balls while they were wrestling and they decided to go to the doctor to get him checked out.

      So now you're telling us that roshambo is illegal? How the hell else are we supposed to settle disputes? This government law-making business is just going too far!

    • Re:Slippery slopes (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Andy Smith ( 55346 )

      What is a sex offender anyway? A kid I knew in highschool was a registered sex offender because he kicked his little brother in the balls while they were wrestling and they decided to go tothe doctor to get him checked out.

      I forget the exact ages but there was a case in the UK when a 14 year old boy had pictures on his computer of a 15 year old girl. The girl was under 16 so the boy was put on the sex offenders register.

      As I said, I forget the exact ages... it may have been that he was 12 and she was 13

  • Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wampus ( 1932 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:11AM (#7709155)
    I don't really recall hearing about lots of pedorapists stealing children from schools. Am I just not paying attention or is this a solution looking for a problem?
    • You're not paying attention. A teacher at my elementary school was kidnapped from her classroom at gunpoint one day by her estranged husband. One possible use for this would be to feed his picture into it and when he showed up, the cops could have been called before he even got to the door. In cases where a child is in the middle of a custody battle where one parent is psycho or something, this would be a good thing.

      This doesn't mean I'm a proponent of the system, just that there ARE some legitimate uses

      • Uhm... no... (Score:3, Informative)

        by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 )
        A teacher at my elementary school was kidnapped from her classroom at gunpoint one day by her estranged husband. One possible use for this would be to feed his picture into it and when he showed up, the cops could have been called before he even got to the door.

        1) Do you want to enter all the "estranged husbands" into the database? How do you define "estranged"? What if he has a kid at the school?

        2) The police wouldh ave been called WHEN he got to the door and ONLY if he entered the principles office
        • 1) No. Only ones that the spouse feels may be a problem. It would be their choice to toss them in the database. This woman was going throug a VERY bad divorce with this dude, and he had a history of abusing her. In that case, I can see where that would be a good thing to do. I couldn't see this happening for cases outside of what I described, and it is in fact a very narrow use. I'm not trying to defend the system as it sits, only say that it DOES have some uses.

          2) Depends on how the system is set up. If
          • even if it caught him getting out of his car, the timeframe is still too slim. The best it could do would be to identify him as the kidnapper in case nobody in the school got a good look at him while he was doing it.

            Also, who gets to appeal on what grounds you get added to the database that automatically calls police. If she had a legal restraining order, then I could see it MAYBE being justified (still a stretch because she may not even have been there when he arrived!!) But just a "we don't like you"
            • Agreed on the restraining order point. That would be a case where the use of a system like this would be appropriate.

              You're probably right that the response time for a police call wouldn't be lessened by much, but the on-premises security could be notified and respond almost immediately. This is assuming that there are on-premises guards, which may not be the case everywhere.

              And of course I wouldn't support satellite tracking for everyone. It would probably hurt my $5000 a day crack and heroin habits,

          • Re:Uhm... no... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by mpe ( 36238 )
            Only ones that the spouse feels may be a problem. It would be their choice to toss them in the database.

            Of course divorcing people would never (on their own initutive or advice of their lawyers) attempt to use any means of herassing the other party...

            This woman was going throug a VERY bad divorce with this dude, and he had a history of abusing her.

            Actual abuse or claims of abuse? It's even quite common for a bully to claim to be the bullied if they think they can get away with it.
            Insitutional bigotry
          • "1) No. Only ones that the spouse feels may be a problem. It would be their choice to toss them in the database."

            Right. We might as well invite people to enter prospective Commies and Witches into the datatbase as well, right there along with Republican and Democratic lawmakers, heavy metal bands, and a comprehensive set of flags that might show someone as "trashy looking" or "wrong color". The public can't be trusted to enter flags into a database like this much more than the government, since we're not

  • It seems that this person [poddys.com] keeps appearing at visual identity scanners across the nation. Security experts are working even now to determine who this individual is, and the threat it potentially poses to America.

  • What do they hope to solve? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Llywelyn ( 531070 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:12AM (#7709162) Homepage
    So if a former sex offender takes the time to visit the middle school, goes into the principles office, and doesn't come up as a false negative, you know they are a sex offender and can watch them more closely. Then, if they leave with a child (which might, incidentally, be their child) you can give them a huge paperwork hassle on their way out. Is it my imagination or is that about the extent of the good a system like this can do.

    Do a lot of middle school kids get snatched out of the principles office without anyone noticing? Or do these people regularly make visits to the principles office without someone spotting them?

    What problem is it that they are trying to fix?

    Also, what are the error rates on this system? False positives and false negatives? Is this really accomplishing anything at all?

  • Orwell (Score:4, Interesting)

    by g-to-the-o-to-the-g ( 705721 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:13AM (#7709164) Homepage Journal
    I hate to sound like a privacy activist, but i would feel somewhat uncomfortable having my face scanned *anywhere*. Maybe, instead of trying to create things to stop known offenders, we should focus more on preventing the offences, through education and rehabilitation. Not to flame, but if the US government spent more of its budget on the countries own welfare, instead of destroying other countries, it may prove a more worthy cause.

  • We had something like that... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <(rustyp) (at) (freeshell.org)> on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:13AM (#7709168) Homepage Journal
    We called them "teachers." They were given some subroutines for face recognition during the first few years of their construction in order to recognize individual students and reject those who didn't actually go to our school. Apparently these had some other function as well, usually, but I forget what it was. Something about information transfer, I believe.

    The advanced model of these, "administrators" also had some programming for student retrieval (of outlier students with difficient programming, leading them to go to well-traveled entertainment locations rather than going to the school). Administrators were also programmed for information retrieval, augmenting their face-recognition and reasoning skills - allowing them to run intrusion-detection hiring subroutines with heuristics designed to limit the presence of malicious entities at the school.

    Is this a new model of administrator? How does it stack up to previous versions?
    • We also had "parents", in addition to "teachers" and "administrators". Via some very obscure protocols (called "telephone", I believe), all of these established an extremely fast and efficient neural net, which had two immediate effects:

      1: The information transfer function of the "teachers" was greatly enhanced, for use during otherwise slack compute cycles, and

      2: Outlier students (such as myself) with rouge programming were corrected in near-real-time. Deficient behavior was *always* risky, and usually di

  • Retarded (Score:5, Insightful)

    by afidel ( 530433 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:14AM (#7709169)
    Not only because of the privacy concerns but because the technology SIMPLY DOESN'T WORK! The department of homeland security trialed some of the best available systems and the error rates were WAY too high.

  • locating missing children (Score:5, Interesting)

    by segment ( 695309 ) <sil AT politrix DOT org> on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:14AM (#7709173) Homepage Journal
    VeriChip [adsx.com] (PDF file) is touted as the next thing to track missing children. It's an implantable chip with GPS capabilities, that can (supposedly) monitor vital life signs. Body temps, pulse, etc. it was also slated to have your health records on the chip as well. Originally it was (and is still being used on) made for cattle ranchers to keep track of their stock...

    Now this is so cool its scary because of the types of abuses that can occur with the chip. Now reason for bringing this up? BOP, and DOD were looking at the chip. DoD as a method of replacing dotags, BOP (Bureau of Prisons...? Puzzling considering these chips are implantable.

    Sex offenders? They should have something like this, but at the same time they shouldn't. If they've done their time, they should go through a vigorous psyche exam before being released. Why punish them twice if they've served their time. Now I think they're the biggest scum on earth, but at the same time you can't have your cake and eat it too...

    What? The chip to replace the Social Security card? Scary thought... but in a way freakishly cool...

  • It's only a matter of time before they install these suckers at airports to search for suspected terrorists. A false positive is gonna suck. They'll confiscate your obviously forged passport, search every body cavity you have plus a few that didn't exist before, and finally ship you off for an all expense paid Cuban vacation!

  • Reliable Face Recognition in real time? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alphakappa ( 687189 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:28AM (#7709223) Homepage
    Well, sorry to break the news to them, but it DOES NOT EXIST! I'm familiar with a lot of research that takes place in my university and I know how imperfect the best systems are. (unless the military developed something amazing and decided to share it with the company that sold this school their system.. methinks that's balderdash). Just being able to get a proper face from a crowd is a big deal right now - even with faces aligned properly w.r.t the camera, face recognition is pretty crappy at the moment.
    But of course, even if the system doesn't work, I'd be very concerned if my face was scanned into some government computer that is accessible to umpteen departments and might end up being used for god knows what!

  • Faulty justification (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Camel Racer ( 134168 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:28AM (#7709224)
    So these cameras are being placed in one school with the hope that funding will show up to place them in other schools, at $3K to $10K per installation with the sole justification being "If it works one time, locates one missing child or saves a child from a sexual attack, I feel it's worth it," . The article does not state that this is an ongoing problem -- rampant missing children or sexual attacks on campus. But the article does not contrast the time (money) spent on false alarms vs. spending funds for additional law enforcement personnel -- instead of paying for more unproven face recognition systems.

    • Don't forget to mention the camera is installed in the OFFICE of the school. So, fortuately for kidnapper pedophiles, kid-snatching on the campus is still unaffected.

      Stewey
    • So these cameras are being placed in one school with the hope that funding will show up to place them in other schools, at $3K to $10K per installation with the sole justification being "If it works one time, locates one missing child or saves a child from a sexual attack, I feel it's worth it," . The article does not state that this is an ongoing problem -- rampant missing children or sexual attacks on campus. But the article does not contrast the time (money) spent on false alarms vs. spending funds for a
  • "If it works one time, locates one missing child or saves a child from a sexual attack, I feel it's worth it," said Arpaio, a tough-talking sheriff who has previously gained notoriety for his chain gangs and prison-issued pink underwear.

    From a sheriff who issues pink underwear? I think we found the purvert.

    Seriously, there is the potential for abuse. Why not just do better background checks of who the school hires? This is a scapegoat. First, it will not work, as some human has to be there to make a fi

    • This is so excruciatingly stupid I don't know where to begin.

      Where is the potential for abuse? You have a list of sex offenders along with their mugshots. If the machine picks up a hit, the person in question gets asked a couple of questions. It has nothing to do with hiring practices. There are THOUSANDS of pedophiles out there that don't have a criminal record, and a background check is useless there. Also, fuck the slippery slope. I've been hearing this slippery slope bullshit for twenty fucking years
      • Then why not go all the way. Lets get a camera and radar detecter on every highway and mail tickets. Why not force everyone to get fingerprinted, and use them instead, whenever they want to buy something (so they do not counterfit or use stolen credit cards), whenever they take an exam, whenever they go to a bank, or enter a school. And the government can keep all this data in a database. Heck maybe libraries can use this too, to track what we read.

        Make jokes about the tinfoil hat, but if history proves o

    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by John Seminal ( 698722 )
      One more thing. Why not punish the sex offenders instead of using this as a reason to take away freedom from everyone else?

      How about we give each sex offender a GPS device, so we know where they are 100% of the time. It can be a condition of parole. If they ever get stopped and do not have it, they go back to jail. If they go within a certain distance of a school, they go to jail.

      It would provide a much better system. Not only would you protect the kids better by knowing where all the sex offenders are,

  • Well that's not gonna work. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:34AM (#7709245) Journal
    Face scanners failed miserably in airports AFAIK, so why do they expect them to work in schools. And besides, for almost every adult in america, there's probably at least one registered sex offender out there who bears a striking resemblence to them.

    Just give out photos of missing children and local sex offenders to several staff members and save a fortune.

  • Lots of people mentioning this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dandelion_wine ( 625330 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:41AM (#7709262) Journal
    so I'll just reply here.

    Probation conditions often include a "no-go". For thieves/vandals, it's often the area around a store they've targeted, so as to prevent either striking again or hassling (or threatening) those storeworkers who testified against him/her.

    For sex offenders, a no-go for schools, daycares and the like is not at all uncommon.

    No-go's can be an infringement of rights if they are overbroad and interfere with a place the individual needs to go. I've seen a no-go that covered several blocks and included the pro-b's workplace -- obviously he had to violate it, challenge it, or lose his job (and guess what -- if a parolee instead, often he/she is under a condition to maintain employment).

    If the pro-b has a kid, then things get complicated. Is there someone else who can pick junior up from school, meet with the teacher if need be, etc? If not, then conditions need to be worked out, like having to call the school first to announce he/she is coming down.

    I know this will strike many as being contrary to the idea of justice being served, but this is what probation and parole are all about -- we consider the person rehabilitated and/or a minimal risk to society, provided that certain rules are observed -- if we allowed for no risk, we'd be keeping people in prison that may present no danger -- if we allowed for more risk, we'd see more paroles and pro-b's re-offending (often in exactly the same manner as their previous crime) and there'd be hell to pay, as there is when such things happen. We can't know what's in a particular person's mind, so we draw the line at some hopefully non-arbitrary point and call it fair enough.

    I would add that if this seems unfair, consider the position of the sex offender who gets their name, address, and face plastered all over every neighbourhood they move to. This strikes me as completely contrary to justice, in that it:

    a) invites vigilantism,
    b) denies any realistic second chance (if their compulsions are a way of dealing with things, how will this contribute to straightening out?),
    c) completely contravenes our ideas of having served time for the original crime and having been rehabilitated.

    In the school example, the courts are trying to minimize risk without keeping people locked up indefinitely. In the post-your-face example, it's denying the person the second chance they're supposed to get, and certainly not contributing to the pro-b turning over a new leaf.

    Imagine if we did that to convicted thieves? (of course, much less stigma, but imagine) If no one was willing to employ them, what options would they be left with? Yep. Way to straightjacket the situation. Great if you're looking for an excuse to just toss them back in.

  • I went to this school (Score:5, Interesting)

    by philipsblows ( 180703 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @02:46AM (#7709277) Homepage

    Okay, it was 20 years ago, but even then it was on the edge of questionable. This dodgy-factor was from a few students, though, and not from unwelcome visitors. The school is in an older part of town in a fairly high-traffic area (it's on 19th avenue, a major thoroughfare) but it is by no means an "inner city" school. Back then the school itself was surrounded by chain link fences and all classrooms have windows, with no hallways. Perhaps they've had these bad characters sneaking on to campus, but I would be surprised if they would go to the front office from there.

    Unless something has changed, this school is two fences and a concrete walkway away from the district office. Maybe that has something to do with the selection of the location.

    Sheriff Joe always seems to come up with new ways of raising eyebrows here in Phoenix. If you look him up on google, you'll find he also had cameras pointing at prisoners, he makes people wear black-and-white stripes in jail, he feeds then the bare minimum for food sometimes, and he has this "tent city" that I hear is not a fun place to visit at all. I expect we'll eventually have to start carrying our identification papers if he stays in office.

  • Face Detection Accuracy (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I work in a computer vision lab. Face Recognition software plain does not work.

    If your in a good enviroment with perfect lighting and good segmentation, you can get 100% accuracy.

    Using lame cheap security cameras pasted all over a campus with varying lighting, very low resolution samples, faces at any random angle, and huge numbers of faces at once, your not gonna detect jack shit. Face detection does not work. This is stupid and should not be implemented if only to save the campus money.

  • Well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dandelion_wine ( 625330 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:16AM (#7709355) Journal
    My old high school now has a cop on duty everyday during school hours. I hate to see it. I don't know if it's necessary. But as for this alternative, it seems to me that every machine has its limits, either in tech or programming. Once you learn what the thing does and how it does it (what's being monitored, where), you can find a way around it.

    Humans adapt on the fly, and can also make good (of course, also bad) judgment calls. If I had to choose one, I'd rather have the human.

  • Moreover... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bif Powell ( 726774 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @03:35AM (#7709410)
    ...I'm perfectly fine having cameras all over public areas to be scrutinized by law enforcement, as long as those public areas include Senators, Governors, and other local elected officials offices where the public can provide oversight. Additionally I wonder if the Civil Liberties groups would be as upset by cameras watching our government officials as they are about it watching the public?

    • Re:Moreover... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Constant surveillance on public officials would never happen, for 'reasons of security'. The Civil Liberties groups would never get to be involved.
  • the error rate is higher than the detection rate in these systems.

    Just wait for someone to be falsely accused and take the matter to court.

  • The dangers from someone who knows (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 13, 2003 @09:01AM (#7710131)

    I don't usually post anonymously, but this time I will. And it is obvious why: officially I am a sex offender. Realistically that means nothings. So let me explain.

    When I was in college I went to a party. I met someone there. They looked about 20-21. They said they were 21. And unlike most of my life, this geek got lucky. Not once, but several times over the next few weeks. You think I wasn't in heaven?

    Then one day this person visited with a friend. While the friend kept me busy in one room, this person stole a spare set of keys to my car. The next day I woke up and my car had been stolen. I went to the police and filed a report. Several hours later my car was totaled in a 4 car accident with the friend driving and this person in the car. The friend told me if I pressed charges there would be trouble. I pressed charges and there was trouble.

    For despite what I had been told, despite what the ID this person had stated, they were only 15 when I met them and had only turned 16 the week before. And this person and the friend then told the police what had been going on. I was searched, arrested (and beaten during the arrest, my nose got "accidentally" broken) and spent a week in jail.

    I was then indicted and convicted of a felony. I spent 6 months in prison and was also given 5 years on probation. I now have a felony record and little hope of a decent job. In fact I lost my union job when I was convicted. My car was totaled and the police refused to press charges because this person told police I let them borrow it. My insurance was cancelled and I now am high risk despite never having a ticket or accident ever. My future, my career and my life was destroyed because I was lied to.

    That same year 3 other guys at college had similar things happen to them. One went to prison for six years because they drank beer before having sex which meant a triple sentence.

    So before you make blanket statements such as "those people are the scum of the earth" remember guys, this could happen to you! And then you are marked for life and the alarm will go off when you pick up your kid. And your face and personal info will appear on the online database. And your neigbors will judge you. "Corruption of a minor" looks pretty bad on that screen when you don't know the facts.

    Fortunately I met a wonderful woman who will soon be my wife. She also had a brush with the law because she dated a 15-year-old sophmore when she was 18. They broke up and he told his parents they had sex. She was arrested but charges were dropped later. So she has an arrest record for a sex offense. We do intend to have children. But I guess we'll have to send grandma to school to pick junior up. We are after all, "sex offenders". We paid for it in so many ways, but the stigma and the nightmare never ends and before I met my fiance, suicide seemed like a possible solution. I just hope it never happens to any of you "scum of the earth" people who stand in judgement of us.

    Gawd, now I'm depressed, guess it's time for a beer...

    • That sucks big time - I am very sorry to hear what happenned to you.

      This problem, though, is bad for even those who are true sex offenders. Whether it is the lists on websites or elsewhere published, or these face recog cameras, all of it amounts to a "scarlet letter" being placed upon them.

      These people (and as per your example, it can quickly be anyone) serve their time - but they never are let alone afterward to become good citizens, they are continually punished, hounded for the rest of their lives like

  • The bottom line (Score:4, Insightful)

    by koan ( 80826 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @10:14AM (#7710417)
    It doesn't matter that the technology doesn't work well currently, what matters is children grow up with RFID, face scanning, retina scanning, bio this electronic that and they get used to it, they get chipped/printed/scanned because our "culture of fear" (see Bowling for Columbine)requires it. Once they grow up with it and are used to it, they (the parents) see no reason their children shouldn't have the same. Over the generations it becomes as common place as vaccinations, or the Nike swoosh (talk about being a tool)
    We can not change this, the momentum that exist will carry this type of technology thru any protest, you can't convince a worried mother that it's better her baby isn't chipped because the technology may be abused.

  • It Should Be Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @10:35AM (#7710537) Homepage
    that the justifications for the cameras are for public consumption only and have nothing to do with the real reasons for the cameras - which probably have to do with self-absorbed administrators who are incompetent or perhaps budget squandering.

    This sort of thing is ubiquitous in the public schools - not to mention a lot of other places. It's not necessarily a grand conspiracy but it IS symptomatic of the state of mind of educators in this country.

    And of course the politicians and the cops and the secret police love this stuff as well since they don't even have to mandate it to make it happen.

  • Gotcha (Score:3, Funny)

    by ottffssent ( 18387 ) on Saturday December 13, 2003 @01:05PM (#7711310)
    The cameras aren't the important part of the system. That's just what they're telling you. In fact, the cameras are really just empty camera housings like they have on buses and such.

    The important part is the office secretary who's paid to notice people who squinch up their face to fool the cameras.

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