{"id":17702,"date":"2020-06-13T11:39:49","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T18:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=17702"},"modified":"2020-06-17T10:55:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T17:55:57","slug":"schools-turn-to-surveillance-tech-to-prevent-covid-19-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=17702","title":{"rendered":"Schools Turn to Surveillance Tech to Prevent Covid-19 Spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

Administrators hope tracking beacons will identify where students congregate and who should be isolated if someone contracts the coronavirus.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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WIRED\u00a006.05.2020<\/strong><\/div>\n
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When Students return\u00a0to school in New Albany, Ohio, in August, they\u2019ll be carefully watched as they wander through red-brick buildings and across well-kept lawns\u2014and not only by teachers.<\/p>\n

The school district, with five schools and 4,800 students, plans to test a system that would require each student to wear an electronic beacon to track their location to within a few feet.<\/strong> The technology logs which students and teachers are in each classroom throughout the day. The hope is such technology could prevent or minimize an outbreak of Covid-19<\/a>, the deadly respiratory disease at the center of a global pandemic.<\/p>\n

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Schools and colleges face an incredible challenge come the fall. Across the world, teachers, administrators, and parents are wrestling with how to welcome pupils back into normally bustling classrooms, dining rooms, and dorms, while the threat of the coronavirus<\/a> remains ever-present.<\/p>\n

Many plan to proceed gradually and carefully, while keeping kids spread out as much as possible. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s guidelines for reopening schools<\/a> recommend staggered schedules that allow for smaller classes, opening windows to provide more air circulation, avoiding sharing books and computers, regular cleaning of buses and classes, and requiring masks and handwashing. Many see some form of distance learning continuing through next year.<\/p>\n

A handful also are considering deploying technology to help. \u201cWe are very much interested in the automated tracking of students,\u201d says Michael Sawyers, superintendent for New Albany-Plain Schools<\/a>. He believes that the technology could help the school determine whether social distancing<\/a> is being observed and help quickly identify students who may have been exposed if someone tests positive for the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

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Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers<\/a> says she isn\u2019t aware of other schools looking to adopt detailed surveillance measures. But the AFT has issued guidelines<\/a> on reopening schools and colleges that warns about vendors potentially using the crisis to expand data-mining practices.<\/p>\n

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A small but growing surveillance industry has sprung up around Covid already, with firms pitching everything from temperature-tracking infrared cameras<\/a> and contact tracing apps<\/a> to wireless beacons and smart cameras<\/a> to help enforce social distancing at work. \u201cIt’s been one of the most disturbing parts of this,\u201d says Albert Fox Cahn<\/a>, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n