Futurism reports on the use of proprietary commercial AI facial recognition and air detection technologies inside schools for surveillance purposes:
As the Denver Post reports, the Cheyenne Mountain School District in Colorado Springs already boasts a network of 400 AI-powered facial recognition cameras scattered throughout its school buildings. The school district argues they ensure school safety and facilitate responses to emergency situations. Critics, however, argue that spending district money to put kids under sci-fi-esque surveillance comes with a slew of practical and ethical concerns.
According to the report, the company behind the facial recognition cameras has also installed smart air sensors, designed to detect whether a kid is vaping or smoking weed.
It is worrying to see the rise of these commercial services in services like education, where public values are of key importance, in this case trust, autonomy. A school should be a safe space for exploitation, where some degree of non-conformity and deviance is tolerated instead of being policed. Especially when this is happening by proprietary technology that in all likelihood cannot be checked and held accountable in the same manner as kids are being held accountable.
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