Big Brother Is Coming To Arizona Schools

There has never been a novel that's held up quite as well as George Orwell's 1949 classic, "1984". The story follows a dystopian future where the ever present "big brother" government is always watching.

Fear of a totalitarian surveillance state is nothing new, but as our world becomes more digital, we're beginning to see concepts only seen in sci-fi horror come to fruition.

We may have finally reached the pinnacle here in Arizona.

A.I. Powered Surveillance

That sounds like something Skynet would implement in the Terminator timeline, right? Well, unfortunately, it's a very real thing that's making its way to one of our most vulnerable locations: schools.

Iveda, a surveillance tech company, has begun to push their service onto Arizona schools. The system is a cloud based Artificial Intelligence that is built into security cameras across school campuses. Piñon Unified School District in the Navajo Nation will be the first to adopt this new system.

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What's the Deal?

So, what exactly does this system do, and what does it mean for Arizona? The school systems that adopt this program will refit their existing security cameras with Iveda's A.I., very similar to the A.I. that can recognize license plates. They will be fitted with a facial recognition software to recognize intruders, and be able to recognize and report anomalies in real time.

While, yes, being able to automatically draw attention to anything that could harm our children is good, does it really justify 24/7 facial recognition of our children? This is a massive step forward in digital surveillance, and only time will tell if it fixes our society or crumbles it.

[Government Technology]