Facial Recognition Technology Is Being Used on More Campuses During COVID-19 – Teen Vogue

On September 22, a group of nine students at the University of Miami received a mysterious email from an administrator. Dr. Ryan Holmes is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting to discuss [the] incident that happened on September 4, 2020, at the Whitten University Center, read the email, obtained by Teen Vogue. There was a Zoom meeting link, but no further explanation. The incident the email referred to, which all nine email recipients had attended, was a die-in to protest conditions for cafeteria workers on campus. In the Zoom meeting, the students say, Holmes gave a long speech about how they should have properly registered their protest. When they asked repeatedly how they had been identified, they report that the dean didnt have as much to say.

Everyone was kind of wondering how we were identified as being at the protest, Mars Fernandez, a graduate student at the University of Miami, tells Teen Vogue. At one point someone just outright asked, Was it some sort of supersecret surveillance technology? The dean just kind of laughed, and then said something about how its no different than if the school were to use facial recognition software to find a students laptop that goes missing from the library.

In late October, another group of University of Miami students got in trouble for removing banners from campus that had been placed by the universitys College Republicans club. University of Miami president Julio Frank emailed the student body with a message, obtained by Teen Vogue, that a pro-Trump banner approved to be displayed on campus had been vandalized and that those found responsible will be held accountable. Soon after, several students who removed the Trump signs say they were called in by the police. Although they did not ask how they were identified as the individuals behind the action, the students who spoke with Teen Vogue say many suspect facial recognition technology was involved.

One student who removed a Trump sign tells Teen Vogue they did so to ensure marginalized students felt safe on campus. To me, that sign was a disgusting display of a hateful belief system that has somehow become socially acceptable with the rise of Trump, says the student, who prefers to remain anonymous. I was contacted by the police a couple days after. The student says they felt as if the police were trying to intimidate them and the matter was being treated as a criminal investigation. Since they used the word criminal, a lawyer informed me that it was within my fifth amendment rights to not show up and testify against myself," the student explains. "The lawyer reached out and told the police she was representing me, and I havent heard from them since. Teen Vogue has reached out to the University of Miami Police Department multiple times for comment.

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In a statement emailed to Teen Vogue, the University of Miami denies any use of facial recognition technology on campus. The University does not employ facial recognition technology in its security measures, the statement reads. The University was criticized, wrongly, for allegedly using facial recognition technology to identify students who attended a September protest.

However, the resume of David Rivero, the chief of police with the University of Miami Police Department, touts the universitys usage of a camera system that employs facial recognition. One of the largest security project[s] added during Chief Riveros tenure was the creation of the new university-wide camera system, reads Riveros resume, obtained by Teen Vogue. The system now includes 1,338 cameras, recording 24 hours a day, and featuring video analytics, which is the use of sophisticated algorithms applied to a video stream to detect predefined situations and parameters such as motion detection, facial recognition, object detection, and much more. In an October 4 interview with Distraction, a student magazine at the university, Rivero admitted to using facial recognition to catch a few bad guys on campus. According to the universitys statement, though, Rivero denies the use of facial recognition technology during the September protests on campus.Teen Vogue has reached out for clarity surrounding the matter, but has not received a response.

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Facial Recognition Technology Is Being Used on More Campuses During COVID-19 - Teen Vogue