Avigilon’s appearance search tool isn’t facial recognition, but it still has privacy risks. - Vox

Avigilon’s appearance search tool isn’t facial recognition, but it still has privacy risks. - Vox

New surveillance AI can tell schools where students are and where they’ve been
Not all AI being used by schools is facial recognition. That doesn’t mean the tech doesn’t come with privacy risks.

As mass shootings at US schools increase in frequency while our country’s gun control laws remain weaker than those in any other developed nation, more school administrators across the US are turning to artificially intelligent surveillance tools in an attempt to beef up school safety. But systems that allow schools to easily track people on campus have left some worried about the impact on student privacy.

Recode has identified at least nine US public school districts — including the district home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, which in 2018 experienced one of the deadliest school shootings in US history — that have acquired analytic surveillance cameras that come with new, AI-based software, including one tool called Appearance Search.

Appearance Search can find people based on their age, gender, clothing, and facial characteristics, and it scans through videos like facial recognition tech — though the company that makes it, Avigilon, says it doesn’t technically count as a full-fledged facial recognition tool.

Even so, privacy experts told Recode that, for students, the distinction doesn’t necessarily matter. Appearance Search allows school administrators to review where a person has traveled throughout campus — anywhere there’s a camera — using data the system collects about that person’s clothing, shape, size, and potentially their facial characteristics, among other factors. It also allows security officials to search through camera feeds using certain physical descriptions, like a person’s age, gender, and hair color. So while the tool can’t say CONTINUE READING: Avigilon’s appearance search tool isn’t facial recognition, but it still has privacy risks. - Vox