UK college begins testing facial recognition attendance system
It's something we never really appreciated when waltzing into class way back when, but the ability to show up at your leisure without having to "clock in" and "clock out" was awesome. If you agree, you'll probably want to shred that application for City of Ely Community College in the UK, which has become one of the first UK schools to trial a new facial recognition technology from Aurora. Officials suggest that knowing who is on campus at any given time helps them in case of emergency, as they can easily see if they've collected everyone into a safe area; being the Big Brother haters that we are, we tend to see things a bit differently. And besides, who really wants to show up two minutes early to class to have some machine look at your groggy, tattered up face? Have a look in the read link for a quick video of what you are (or are not, we suppose) missing.
[Via Slashdot]
[Via Slashdot]























What if I get my face hacked-and-slashed? It won't recognize me anymore...
They abandoned the shirt-tucked-in recognition scheme, as it flagged most of the faculty and administrators.
It's just the kind of BS you'd expect from such an institution
Good call on the shirt thing
I give it one day before it is compromised. People playing hooky will get their buddies to bring along 8"x10" colour printouts of their faces to defeat the system.
Agreed.....
You mean like the age-recognition ciggie machine in Japan? :p
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/01/japans-face-authorizing-cigarette-machines-no-match-for-bruce-w/
+1. Was thinking the same thing. And when they put that "it's REALLY for emergency situations" spin on it, I can only imagine the chaos ensuing as responders rip through a burning classroom looking for someone who was never there.
Why would they care if you attended lectures or not? Its a college not a high school. People are paying to be there. I am a university student and none of my profs care if I attend class or not.
In the UK college is free.... You have to work to get in and stay in I believe..... In the us it wouldnt fly unless youre all scholarship......
Yeh, college is after GCSEs so 16-18 and is still state funded, also you can get maintenence allowances (EMA) off the government for turning up to class, performance etc. (yes its got that bad that they have to pay people to go to school....) this would make judging who has qualified for their allowance a lot easier.
^ What he said ^
College in the UK _is_ high school. We don't call universities colleges.
Thank goodness they're not using rectal identification technology.
... Oops, I mean retinal
"Community College tries best to prepare students for their later careers in the surveillance capital of Europe"
Just another socially ignorant measure to beat you into submission. They can take their "emergency" and shove it. Use your remaining freedom of choice to choose another college.
If this is the UK then expect it to be promptly banned. The Data Protection Act doesn't allow for this sort of thing. The library at my High School (equivalent of Middle School for Americans) had fingerprint recognition in the library which was banned.
awesome, i love facials!
now the question... what if i give my mate a large photo of me?
Maybe we should install these in homes so the government can monitor us and keep us safe all the time!!!
On an unrelated note, I feel like watching 'Minority Report'.
HEY! TEACHERS!
Leave those kids alone.
Wow...I had no idea Kentucky was that far advanced.
I see what you did here
I don't predict that this will have any real utility in actually protecting anyone at this college from anything.
On the other hand, it has excellent utility in helping spot universities that are wasting way too much money on stupid things, and need their funding cut.
In the UK it seems, that Orwell´s "1984" became reality in the last years....It´s quite good, that in continental Europe the people are much more concerned about such surveillance societies.....
We've been experimenting with RFID student ID cards. It works very well for things like taking attendance (the room knows you're here) but students can't forget them and there was a big uproar about privacy. I can't imagine facial recognition overcoming the privacy concern Americans have, but it would be hard to go to school without your face on...