The system, which was introduced on the first day of the 2020 school session yesterday, takes only two seconds to scan a pupil’s face before his personal information, such as full name, pupil number and class, is stored into the school’s database
https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/01/552737/sk-taman-perling-1-uses-facial-recognition-scanners-mark-pupils
A school in Johor became the first in the country to introduce facial recognition scanners to take pupils attendance — hopefully it’ll be the last.
This harks back to the time I was speaking at the Bersih Roundtable, and every single person there was hyped up over using Blockchain for voting, but couldn’t articulate exactly what problem it would have solved. Technology is nice — but it has to solve an existing problem, otherwise it’s just fashion.
So back to the school — why do we need facial scanners at a school?
Apparently, “The aim of the system is to make it easier for teachers to take attendance. They no longer have to do it manually, which reduces teachers’ workload”
So it takes 2 seconds to scan a pupils face — and it can also reduce the teachers workload. That’s an admirable goal.
But why not get the class monitor to take attendance? Isn’t that what they’re there for?
Save yourself the hassle, and forgo any of the possible future security and privacy implication. And let the class monitor do their job. I’m absolutely sure, a monitor yelling out somebodys name, and waiting for a ‘present’ response takes shorter than 2 seconds.
You might be tempted to tell me that the class monitor might be sick some days — so I’ll bet you a sweet $100 bill, that this facial scanning machine thinga-ma-jig fails more often than the monitor calls in sick. I’m also confident it gets hit by ransomware within the next 5 years 🙂
There really is no reason to employ this technology today, specifically with the full implications of its usage yet to be defined and understood.
Just stop!