Lockport City School District is barred, at least for a while, from using its facial recognition-based surveillance system under legislation signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday.
The newly enacted legislation imposes a moratorium on the purchase and use of biometric identifying technology in schools until at least July 1, 2022, or until a report is completed and the state Education Commissioner authorizes their use, whichever is later.
The moratorium applies to both public and private schools in New York state and covers the state-funded, multi-million-dollar Aegis software-powered facial and object recognition system that was activated by the Lockport district on Jan. 2.
District Superintendent Michelle Bradley expressed disappointment in the signing after Cuomo’s office announced it, but said in a written statement Tuesday evening that the district will “comply with applicable law.”
“The district’s implementation of enhanced security measures, including facial recognition technology, was specifically approved during November 2017 by the New York State Smart School Bond Act Review Board and by New York State Education Department Facilities Planning. The district’s facial and object recognition system ... is currently providing a clearly enhanced level of security in the district’s schools,” Bradley said.
“(T)he district does not believe that many of the concerns that have been expressed with regard to facial recognition are applicable to the district’s particular use of this technology, including with regard to the accuracy of such technology (and) continues to believe that its students, staff and visitors should not be deprived of the additional layer of security provided” by the system.
“The district looks forward to assisting the state in its study of facial recognition technology based on the district’s positive record of use of this technology over the past year, and engaging in continued collaboration and dialogue on the critical issue of school security,” Bradley added.
District parent and Union-Sun & Journal contributor Jim Shultz, who has been a vocal critic of the school board’s decision to purchase and use the Aegis-powered system, welcomed the moratorium.
“The district wasted $2.7 million on a camera system that did nobody any good and was so bad that it inspired a state law,” he said.
The moratorium also was hailed by New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed a lawsuit against the state Education Department in June seeking to overturn its approval of Lockport’s system. Shultz and three other Lockport district residents, including recently elected district trustee Renee Cheatham, are named plaintiffs in that suit.
“The moratorium on biometric surveillance is a landmark piece of legislation that should serve as a national model to stop the proliferation of faulty, harmful facial recognition technologies in schools,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “For children, whose appearances change rapidly as they grow, and for people of color and women more broadly, the accuracy of biometric technologies is highly questionable. This is especially important as schools across the state begin to acknowledge the experiences of Black and Brown students being policed in schools and funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline.”
In announcing the signing of the legislation, which was approved by state lawmakers this past July, Cuomo said that while facial recognition technology has the potential to provide a “host of benefits” to New Yorkers, its use in schools “brings up serious and legitimate privacy concerns” that must be examined.
“This legislation requires state education policymakers to take a step back, consult with experts and address privacy issues before determining whether any kind of biometric identifying technology can be brought into New York’s schools,” Cuomo said. “The safety and security of our children is vital to every parent, and whether to use this technology is not a decision to be made lightly.”
According to Cuomo’s office, under an agreement reached with the legislature to be adopted in the upcoming session, the state Office of Information Technology will work with the state Education Department and will seek feedback from teachers and parents, as well as experts in school safety, security, data and student privacy issues.
The law requires study of address specific considerations including the technology’s potential impact on student civil liberties and privacy, how the data collected would be used, and whether the technology’s accurate rate varies depending on the race, gender, age and other characteristics of those being scanned.
Where it finds biometric identifying technology appropriate for use in schools, the study will also identify restrictions and guidelines to govern its use, the governor’s office said.
State Assembly Member Monica P. Wallace, D-Lancaster, who sponsored the legislation, has consistently argued that the use of facial recognition technology requires more research to determine whether it is appropriate in school settings.
“There are serious concerns about misidentification, misuse and data privacy that must be considered before allowing this technology to be used in schools across the state,” she said on Tuesday.
The signing of the legislation follows published reports that examined the results of a performance audit commissioned by the developer of the Aegis software, Canada-based SN Technologies, and shared with the Lockport district. The audit by the Freed Maxick firm found that the system’s false match identification rate for Black males was close to four times that of white males, resulting in one false match for every 25,000 matches found, and that the false match rate for Black females was 16 times that of white males, resulting in one false match for every 6,250 matches. SN Tech originally had said the false match rate for Black males was twice that of white males and the false match rate for Black females was 10 times that of white males.
The audit also identified other potential issues with the system, including instances where it was unable to clearly differentiate between weapons and other objects such as broomsticks.
Shultz said district officials were sold on the idea that the Aegis system was state-of-the-art and ready for use in a school setting only to find, after they agreed to purchase and install the system, that it was not as accurate or effective as advertised.
“The one thing you can say for the Lockport school district is that they did every other school district in the country a favor because no other district is going to make the same mistake as Lockport,” he said.
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