Last week ChalkFace wrote about a school in Sweden that has been trialing facial recognition software ( Facial recognition: School ID checks lead to fine in Sweden) . The local authority running that trial was fined as it was deemed to be in breach of Swedish privacy laws (parental approval of all students tracked was gained) so it was with great interest we read this article in the SCMP this week. A university in eastern China has installed a facial recognition system at its entrance and in two classrooms to monitor the attendance and behaviour of students.
China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, announced on its website on Thursday that it was one of the first higher education institutions in the country to put such a system in place.
“It can effectively solve the management difficulties and low efficiencies in a traditional attendance system, and make it easier for managers to track their students,” Xu Jianzhen, director of the university’s library and information centre, told news website Thepaper.cn.
In a pilot project, two classrooms were equipped with an attendance system using facial recognition software, with a camera that automatically captured the faces of students in class without their cooperation, the university said.
“The school is taking action to cut down on students skipping class, leaving classes early, paying for a substitute to attend classes for them and not listening in class,” he said.
As raised in the previous article the productivity and security benefits are massive but there are many questions about privacy concerns that need addressing. It appears that this type of technology will soon be arriving in academic institutions around the world.
So what do you think?
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