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Is School Surveillance Going Too Far? Privacy Leaders Urge a Slow Down

June 10, 2019

By: Emily Tate

Source: EdSurge

To surveil or not to surveil? That is the question U.S. schools are grappling with as they face mounting pressure to better protect students against the gamut of growing safety concerns, from school shootings to bullying and self-harm.

Increasingly, many schools and states are deciding that the answer is to surveil—through social media monitoring, facial recognition cameras, threat assessment and other emerging technologies. But that decision does not come without its share of dissenters. One of the highest-profile examples involves New York’s Lockport City School District, which is using public funds from a Smart Schools bond to help pay for a reported $3.8 million security system that uses facial recognition technology to identify individuals who don’t belong on campus.

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