Some Colorado schools use facial recognition software to make students safer. Is it also a civil rights violation?

In The NoCo

Some Colorado schools use facial recognition software to make students safer. Is it also a civil rights violation?

By In The NoCo,

Ariel Lavery, Brad Turner

Published October 29, 2024 at 5:40 AM MDT

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Mark Baker

Elizabeth Hernandez is an education reporter for The Denver Post and has written about the use of facial recognition software in Colorado school cameras. She said that, although several school districts are eager to try this new technology, "there really isn't any definitive research as to whether AI cameras in schools make schools safer."

A handful of Colorado schools monitor their students with cameras that use facial recognition software. It鈥檚 a security measure: An administrator with access to the technology can upload a student鈥檚 photo and then the system can use cameras around the school to pinpoint a student鈥檚 location.

More school districts across the state are exploring whether to adopt this technology, according to a . And it's highlighting a conflict between supporters who say it helps make schools safer and opponents who call it a violation of students鈥� civil rights.

In the NoCo鈥檚 Brad Turner talked with Denver Post education reporter , who has been covering the subject and spoken with people on all sides of the issue.

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In The NoCo

KUNC's In The NoCo is a daily slice of stories, news, people and issues. It's a window to the communities along the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The show brings context and insight to the stories of the day, often elevating unheard voices in the process. And because life in Northern Colorado is a balance of work and play, we celebrate the lighter side of things here, too.

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Ariel Lavery

Ariel Lavery grew up in Louisville, Colorado and has returned to the Front Range after spending over 25 years moving around the country. She co-created the podcast Middle of Everywhere for WKMS, Murray State University鈥檚 NPR member station, and won Public Media Journalism awards in every season she produced for Middle of Everywhere. Her most recent series project is "The Burn Scar", published with The Modern West podcast. In it, she chronicles two years of her family鈥檚 financial and emotional struggle following the loss of her childhood home in the Marshall Fire.

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Brad Turner

Brad Turner is an executive producer in KUNC's newsroom. He manages the podcast team that makes In The NoCo, which also airs weekdays in Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His work as a podcaster and journalist has appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition, NPR Music, the PBS 暗黑爆料hour, Colorado Public Radio, MTV Online, the Denver Post, Boulder's Daily Camera, and the Longmont Times-Call.

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