Cara Prunier- At the Seattle Private Elementary School, University Child Development School, the administrators gave the parents of students the option to utilize and install their face into a database to increase school security. Facial recognition is the system of technology that is capable of identifying and verifying one’s face through a digital image or video frame. Facial recognition is used in a variety of environments such as college classrooms, businesses at entrances and restricted areas, hotels, and casinos. Facial recognition has also been introduced in some of the newest iPhone models to unlock the phone. This facial recognition is also used in surveillance systems at airports to detect suspected criminals. In the Seattle elementary school, if one’s face is recognized by the system the door to the school will open. So far, around three hundred parents have added their face into the database. The facial recognition feature is free and offered to parents and students in this school district. Seattle technology company, SAFR, has installed above 8 million faces and 8 million data points including the University Child Development School. The system is shown to be efficient and holds near-perfect accuracy when identifying faces. The ultimate goal of adding this feature to the schools is to ensure and enhance school safety. Mike Vance, senior director of product management at SAFR, states “there’s a lot of benefit for schools understanding who’s coming and going.”There's a general habituation of people to be tolerant of this kind of tracking of their face," said Adam Schwartz, a lawyer with digital privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This is especially troubling when it comes to schoolchildren. It's getting them used to it." One parent, Ana Hedrick, claims “it’s very convenient, it feels safe.” With a large number of school shootings across America, security in schools has become a huge concern and priority. However, there is still controversy throughout the school system about whether or not this system is effective. Critics aren’t positive these systems will be effective enough to outweigh the privacy costs. School security is an issue to always be taken seriously, but the benefits of facial recognition in school environments are largely unknown as it is not extremely common. Critics also worry this facial recognition feature will teach school children that worrying about intruders and expose them to the horrible and “scary” aspects of the real world. The damage to the school’s privacy could turn out to be “exceedingly high.” Though this technology is constantly advancing, there happen to be many disadvantages found in certain facial recognition software. New York Times released an article titled “Facial Recognition Is Accurate if You’re a White Guy.” This article focuses on that most white men are detected correctly 99% of the time, whereas only up to nearly 35% of darker skinned women were detected correctly. As not all races and genders are recognized as consistently as others, this system may not be the best possible option to use in school districts.
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