Current Event: Facial Recognition in Schools
Some community colleges in the UK are starting to use facial recognition software to check students into school (article at http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/displayarticle.asp?id=396794). The article focuses on the positive benefits of the new system. The key benefit is in the time savings of checking the students in. They also noted that having the data on who is currently at school is helpful in the case of fire drills (or real fires for that matter).
While this technology does make some administrative tasks much simpler and easier to carry out, it is important that steps are taken to keep this data secure. For example, if an attacker could comprimise the system, they could potentially track/stalk students more effectively. There is also the issue of false positives and false negatives. If a malicious person is recognized as a legitimate student, then they might be able to hide the fact that that student is missing, among other possibilities. On the flip side, if a legitimate student is not recognized, this would likely cause annoyance if they are informed, or could lead to the assumption that they are skipping when in fact they are there.