Parkland Is Embracing Student Surveillance

In the 11 months since 17 teachers and students were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, campuses across the country have started spending big on surveillance technology. The Lockport, New York, school district spent $1.4 million in state funds on a facial-recognition system. Schools in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles have adopted artificial-intelligence software—prone to false positives—that scans students’ Facebook and Twitter accounts for signs that they might become a shooter. In New Mexico, students as young as 6 are under acoustic surveillance, thanks to a gunshot-detection program originally developed for use by the military to track enemy snipers.

Earlier this month, the Marjory on the safety and security failures that contributed to fatalities during last year’s shooting. The report recommended giving police real-time access to the school’s surveillance cameras and allocating more resources to students who are “high utilizers of mental health services.” Outreach to these students, the report reads, “needs to be proactive” so that officials “obtain information about concerning behavior before they manifest into actual threats.”