Since August 2022, ROC has made significant progress implementing facial recognition and computer vision technology across several school districts in West Virginia. Beginning with Marion County schools and expanding to Doddridge, Putnam, and Taylor Counties, ROC has installed systems at school entrances to identify both authorized and unauthorized individuals, including those listed on the state’s sex offender registry. In a recent interview with WVNews, ROC CEO Scott Swann and Senior Vice President of Program Delivery Russell Guzek discussed ROC’s efforts to enhance school safety across West Virginia.
“ROC provides information to the person opening the door so they can make an informed decision,” Swann said to WVNews.
“We currently have 46 schools in those four counties that are testing every face that approaches the door against the West Virginia Sex Offender Registry, and that’s updated daily… (We want to give schools) earlier detection of somebody who could actually cause harm in the school, whether that’s a list of people they’ve expelled or parents who aren’t authorized to pick up their kids that day.”
It is worth noting that the software’s capabilities extend beyond facial recognition alone. Doddridge County Schools have begun utilizing ROC’s weapon detection capabilities using computer vision to identify firearms, allowing users to detect long and short guns on or around a school property. While this system has its challenges, it has the potential to save lives.
Swann added, “we know that school shootings are a problem in America. If someone is in the parking lot and is holding a weapon, and you can identify that and get that alert out quickly, why would someone not want to have that?”
Guzek further commented that “we’ve also had schools where there are vagrants or other people trying to enter the school… so we can alert based on just detecting that there is a person in the video… Or if there are vehicles on their property at times of the day when there shouldn’t be or in certain parking lots… There are a lot of applications that are of interest to schools.”
Through constantly monitoring school camera feeds 24 hours a day, ROC helps schools be more dynamic in how they deal with visitors and threats. It is a great way to take existing passive infrastructure and capabilities and transform them into proactive, intelligent, future-ready systems.
Read the full article with WV News
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