Civil rights group wants New York state to rescind approval of facial recognition system
The New York State Civil Liberties Union has asked the state education department to rescind its approval of the Lockport City School District's facial and object recognition system.
The Lockport Union Sun & Journal reports that the organization's request followed news of the school district's launch last week of its software-based surveillance system.
Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the NYCLU’s Education Policy Center, wrote a letter to Interim Education Commissioner Shannon Tahoe in which she outlines numerous concerns with the state’s November decision to allow operation of the system.
Coyle says the education department's November letter appears to give the Lockport district "explicit" permission to use its system "despite unanswered questions about the system's functionality and the very real risks of this technology."
"We conclude that allowing Lockport to utilize this biometric surveillance system in its schools, based on current information, is arbitrary and capricious," Coyle wrote.
The NYCLU argues that by allowing Lockport to activate the facial recognition system, the state education department has “has opened the floodgates to a new reality of high-tech student surveillance with potentially devastating consequences.”
The civil rights organization is urging New York lawmakers to approve legislation that would biometric surveillance of students like that in use in Lockport.
The Lockport district installed the surveillance system last year, but the state ordered it in June to stop using or testing the system in the midst of concerns about how it would affect student privacy.
