Face recognition systems appear in US schools, but their effectiveness is questionable.

In the American city of Lockport, New York, are going to modernize schools. But this is not about improving the training system or improving the conditions for students and teachers. The administration has purchased face recognition systems. They will be used as a tool to prevent the use of weapons in schools. Recently, such cases have become much more frequent, so officials and school officials are trying to solve the problem in different ways.

The system, which was purchased by schools, will first be used in a small number of educational institutions. It can recognize not only faces, but also various objects. The platform is called Aegis, it was developed by the Canadian company SN Technologies Corp.

The system is already working in many organizations in the field. It helps to detect criminals, expelled students in universities, to determine the presence of firearms in the frame. In particular, Aegis is able to identify the most popular types of weapons.

The school district of New York received about $ 4 million to develop the concept of "smart school". The project provides for the introduction and latest security systems. In addition to electronics, this is bullet-proof glass mass warning system.

Nevertheless, this system raises a number of questions - after all, most of those who brought weapons to American schools studied there. Well, if you already got the weapon and started to use it - the sense that the surveillance system recognizes it a little. No one pulls a pistol around the school for several hours before starting to shoot one. The system may be effective in detecting potential troublemakers from the outside, that is, in relation to outsiders. For "its", it is either completely useless, or much less effective than when working with external factors.

But if we talk about her work as a security system. But as a system for monitoring students, it can be useful.

In the United States, Lockport schools are not the first educational institutions that are beginning to use surveillance systems. There are they in schools of other states. And they are watching not only for the students, but also for what is happening around. For example, the sounds of shots are “listened”, immediately notifying the police in case of sound identification. Plus, the cameras track the numbers of approaching cars. If the number (or rather, the car on which it is installed) is wanted, the police are automatically notified.

Now a number of states are considering the issue of increasing the effectiveness of such monitoring systems and adding new features to their functionality. For example, as in China, where cameras help improve student performance. How? Above the blackboard, cameras connected to the face recognition system are installed. Including such a system determines the emotions. If a student is recorded who is distracted, the teacher receives a message, and he in one way or another again engages the student in the process of obtaining new knowledge.

The psychological factor also works here - many students, seeing the cameras constantly watching them, try to behave in an appropriate way. They say that now it is impossible to be lazy or distracted - it is clear that one way or another the teacher will understand that the student is not too zealous. So the words of teachers heed everything.


Chinese systems recognize seven kinds of emotions.

If Americans begin to use their systems in the role of "wardens", this may have an effect on improving student performance. On the other hand, the USA is not China, there are much more reverent attitude to human rights, including the right to privacy. Permanent observation will bring psychological discomfort to students, in which case schools may even begin to receive lawsuits in court.

But there is another important issue - the cost of the system and its compliance with the expectations. Such complexes are very much, but the accuracy of some of them leaves much to be desired. For example, the face recognition system from the Wales police works with low efficiency. In her work a lot of false positives. And here we have in mind not the school system, but the technology used by the police. For example, the Wales police during the 2017 Champions League decided to use a digital perpetrator analysis system that worked almost in real time. There were about 2.5 thousand hits, but there were many times fewer real criminals among them .

If school systems work with the same efficiency, then there is no special sense in them.