New York lawmakers put two-year ban on facial recognition in schools
The New York Legislature has passed a two-year moratorium on the consumption of facial recognition in schools.
The ban approved by the home and Senate on Wednesday follows an upstate district’s adoption of the technology within its security plans and a lawsuit from civil rights advocates challenging that approach.
The legislation would prohibit the application of biometric identifying technology in schools until at least July 1, 2022, and direct the state’s education commissioner to issue a written report examining its potential effect on student and staff privacy and recommending guidelines.
The Lockport Central School District activated its system in January after meeting conditions set by state education officials, including that not any students be entered in to the database of potential threats. Schools have been closed since mid-March as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Administrators have got said the machine is capable of alerting staff to guns and also sex offenders, suspended staff members and other people flagged for legal reasons enforcement or prohibited by court order from being in schools.
If signed into legislation by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the moratorium would effectively pause the Lockport district’s system before education commissioner’s study is definitely conducted or the moratorium can be ended, in line with the NY Civil Liberties Union, which sued in June to have the system deactivated.
Lockport administrators said Thursday these were “profoundly disappointed” by the Legislature’s action protecting against them from by using a system that was first approved by both NY state and the training Department.
“The district will not believe that there is any valid basis on which it ought to be prevented from utilizing this available, approved and operating technology to improve the safety and security of the district’s students, staff and visitors and respond to real world threats,” an area statement said.
The NYCLU lawsuit, filed with respect to two district parents, is pending.
“We’ve said for a long time that facial recognition and other biometric surveillance technologies haven't any place in schools, and this is a monumental revolution to protect students out of this sort of invasive surveillance,” Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the NYCLU’s Education Policy Center, said in a written statement. “Schools ought to be a host where children can master and grow, and the existence of a flawed and racially-biased system constantly monitoring students produces that impossible.”
In a statement praising the non permanent ban, the New York City-based Surveillance Technology Oversight Project stated the technology is considerably more error-prone for students of colour, “compounding the human bias they face each day.”
Although found in places like airports and stadiums, facial recognition is so considerably rare in public schools. The western New York district is thought to be the first in the state to include the technology in the aftermath of deadly mass school shootings.
Superintendent Michelle Bradley features said the system does not accumulate or store any personally identifiable or different information until a good match is made and confirmed by school staff, who receive a great alert from the system.
The $1.4 million Canadian-made Aegis system was funded through circumstances technology band.
