Schools Enlist AI to Detect Vaping and Bullies in Bathrooms

Schools have been removing bathroom doors, posting bathroom monitors, and even closing bathrooms in their struggles to handle the surging popularity of vaping among middle school and high school students. That has translated into steady business for a U.S. company offering AI-assisted school surveillance capable of alerting teachers and administrators to suspected vaping or bullying in bathrooms. Soter Technologies originally developed its Fly Sense device with bullying detection in mind. But schools began asking the company about whether it could also help monitor the rise of vaping--also known as Juuling because of the popular Juul vape pens--among students. In response, the company made Fly Sense into a cloud-connected sensor capable of detecting both the telltale signatures of vaping and elevated sound levels that might indicate fighting or bullying.