{"id":8374,"date":"2022-07-16T14:50:25","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T14:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8374"},"modified":"2022-07-16T14:50:25","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T14:50:25","slug":"the-problem-with-schools-turning-to-surveillance-after-mass-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8374","title":{"rendered":"The problem with schools turning to surveillance after mass shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The problem is that there\u2019s very little evidence that surveillance technology effectively stops these kinds of tragedies. Experts even warn that these systems can create a culture of surveillance at schools that harms students. At many schools, networks of cameras running AI-based software would join other forms of surveillance that schools already have, like metal detectors and on-campus police officers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn an attempt to stop, let\u2019s say, a shooter like what happened at Uvalde, those schools have actually extended a cost to the students that attend them,\u201d Odis Johnson Jr<\/a>, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, told Recode. \u201cThere are other things we now have to consider when we seek to fortify our schools, which makes them feel like prisons and the students themselves feel like suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, schools and other venues often turn to surveillance technology in the wake of gun violence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even more advanced forms of surveillance tech have a tendency to miss warning signs. So-called weapon detection technology has accuracy issues and can flag all sorts of items that aren\u2019t weapons, like walkie-talkies<\/a>, laptops, umbrellas, and eyeglass cases<\/a>. If it\u2019s designed to work with security cameras, this tech also wouldn\u2019t necessarily pick up any weapons that are hidden or covered. As critical studies by researchers like Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru, and Deborah Raji<\/a> have demonstrated, racism and sexism can be built inadvertently into facial recognition software. One firm, SN Technologies, offered a facial recognition algorithm to one New York school district that was 16 times more likely to misidentify Black women than white men, according to an analysis<\/a> conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. There\u2019s evidence, too, that recognition technology may identify children\u2019s faces<\/a> less accurately than those of adults.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Research conducted by Johnson, the Johns Hopkins professor, and Jason Jabbari<\/a>, a research professor at Washington University in St. Louis, found that a wide range of surveillance tools, including measures like security cameras and dress codes, hurt students\u2019 academic performance at schools that used them. That\u2019s partly because the deployment of surveillance measures \u2014 which, again, rarely stops mass shooters \u2014 tends to increase the likelihood that school officials or law enforcement at schools will punish or suspend students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the rarity of school shooting events, digital surveillance is more likely to be used to address minor disciplinary issues,\u201d Barabas, the MIT researcher, explained. \u201cExpanded use of school surveillance is likely to amplify these trends in ways that have a disproportionate impact on students of color, who are frequently disciplined for infractions that are both less serious and more discretionary than white students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is all a reminder that schools often don\u2019t use this technology in the way that it\u2019s marketed. When one school deployed Avigilon\u2019s software<\/a>, school administrators used it to track when one girl went to the bathroom to eat lunch, supposedly because they wanted to stop bullying. An executive at one facial recognition company told Recode<\/a> in 2019 that its technology was sometimes used to track the faces of parents who had been barred from contacting their children by a legal ruling or court order. Some schools have even used monitoring software to track and surveil protesters<\/a>.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/23150863\/school-surveillance-mass-shooting-texas-uvalde<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The problem is that there\u2019s very little evidence that surveillance technology effectively stops these kinds of tragedies. Experts even warn that these systems can create a culture of surveillance at schools that harms students. At many schools, networks of cameras running AI-based software would join other forms of surveillance that schools already have, like metal detectors and on-campus police officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn an attempt to stop, let\u2019s say, a shooter like what happened at Uvalde, those schools have actually extended a cost to the students that attend them,\u201d Odis Johnson Jr, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, told Recode. \u201cThere are other things we now have to consider when we seek to fortify our schools, which makes them feel like prisons and the students themselves feel like suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, schools and other venues often turn to surveillance technology in the wake of gun violence.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Even more advanced forms of surveillance tech have a tendency to miss warning signs. So-called weapon detection technology has accuracy issues and can flag all sorts of items that aren\u2019t weapons, like walkie-talkies, laptops, umbrellas, and eyeglass cases. If it\u2019s designed to work with security cameras, this tech also wouldn\u2019t necessarily pick up any weapons that are hidden or covered. As critical studies by researchers like Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru, and Deborah Raji have demonstrated, racism and sexism can be built inadvertently into facial recognition software. One firm, SN Technologies, offered a facial recognition algorithm to one New York school district that was 16 times more likely to misidentify Black women than white men, according to an analysis conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. There\u2019s evidence, too, that recognition technology may identify children\u2019s faces less accurately than those of adults.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Research conducted by Johnson, the Johns Hopkins professor, and Jason Jabbari, a research professor at Washington University in St. Louis, found that a wide range of surveillance tools, including measures like security cameras and dress codes, hurt students\u2019 academic performance at schools that used them. That\u2019s partly because the deployment of surveillance measures \u2014 which, again, rarely stops mass shooters \u2014 tends to increase the likelihood that school officials or law enforcement at schools will punish or suspend students.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the rarity of school shooting events, digital surveillance is more likely to be used to address minor disciplinary issues,\u201d Barabas, the MIT researcher, explained. \u201cExpanded use of school surveillance is likely to amplify these trends in ways that have a disproportionate impact on students of color, who are frequently disciplined for infractions that are both less serious and more discretionary than white students.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is all a reminder that schools often don\u2019t use this technology in the way that it\u2019s marketed. When one school deployed Avigilon\u2019s software, school administrators used it to track when one girl went to the bathroom to eat lunch, supposedly because they wanted to stop bullying. An executive at one facial recognition company told Recode in 2019 that its technology was sometimes used to track the faces of parents who had been barred from contacting their children by a legal ruling or court order. Some schools have even used monitoring software to track and surveil protesters.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[356,407,406,109,1656,357,1290],"class_list":["post-8374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-education","tag-gun-deaths","tag-gun-violence","tag-guns","tag-massacre","tag-school","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8375,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8374\/revisions\/8375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}