As mass shootings at US schools increase in frequency while our country's gun control laws remain weaker than those in any other developed nation, more school administrators across the US are turning to artificially intelligent surveillance tools in an attempt to beef up school safety. But systems that allow schools to easily track people on campus have left some worried about the impact on student privacy. Recode has identified at least nine US public school districts -- including the district home to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, which in 2018 experienced one of the deadliest school shootings in US history -- that have acquired analytic surveillance cameras that come with new, AI-based software, including one tool called Appearance Search. Appearance Search can find people based on their age, gender, clothing, and facial characteristics, and it scans through videos like facial recognition tech -- though the company that makes it, Avigilon, says it doesn't technically count as a full-fledged facial recognition tool. Even so, privacy experts told Recode that, for students, the distinction doesn't necessarily matter.

Avigilon Corporation, a Motorola Solutions company, presents the newest version of its video management software, Avigilon Control Center (ACC) 7.4, which incorporates artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition technology. FEATURES OF AVIGILON CONTROL CENTER (ACC) 7.4 The new "appearance alerts" capability will help commercial organizations, such as educational institutions and hospitals, accelerate response times by identifying people of interest in enterprise settings. For example, the technology can alert the security team at a local high school when a banned or flagged individual has entered the campus. People of interest are identified based on a secure, controlled watch list created and maintained by authorized users at the commercial organization. For organizations that use the new ACC software and license their Avigilon cameras for facial recognition, cameras will seek to identify potential matches based on the watch list.

Paul Hildreth looked at images from security cameras set up at schools in Fulton County, Georgia. He began watching a video of a woman walking inside one of the school buildings. The top of her clothing was bright yellow. Hildreth used his computer's artificial intelligence, or AI system to find other images of the woman. The system put the pictures together in a video that showed where she currently was, where she had been and what she was doing.

Paul Hildreth peered at a display of dozens of images from security cameras surveying his Atlanta school district and settled on one showing a woman in a bright yellow shirt walking a hallway. A mouse click instructed the artificial intelligence-equipped system to find other images of the woman, and it immediately stitched them into a video narrative of where she was currently, where she had been and where she was going. There was no threat, but Hildreth's demonstration showed what's possible with AI-powered cameras. If a gunman were in one of his schools, the cameras could quickly identify the shooter's location and movements, allowing police to end the threat as soon as possible, said Hildreth, emergency operations coordinator for the Fulton County School District. AI is transforming surveillance cameras from passive sentries into active observers that can identify people, suspicious behavior and guns, amassing large amounts of data that help them learn over time to recognize mannerisms, gait and dress.

Kimberly Krawczyk says she would do anything to keep her students safe. But one of the unconventional responses the local Broward County school district has said could stop another tragedy has left her deeply unnerved: an experimental artificial-intelligence system that would surveil her students closer than ever before. The South Florida school system, one of the largest in the country, said last month it would install a camera-software system called Avigilon that would allow security officials to track students based on their appearance: With one click, a guard could pull up video of everywhere else a student has been recorded on campus. The 145-camera system, which administrators said will be installed around the perimeters of the schools deemed "at highest risk," will also automatically alert a school-monitoring officer when it senses events "that seem out of the ordinary" and people "in places they are not supposed to be." The supercharged surveillance network has raised major questions for some students, parents and teachers, like Krawczyk, who voiced concerns about its accuracy, invasiveness and effectiveness. Her biggest doubt: that the technology could ever understand a school campus like a human can.

In a city of the future, it would be nice to know quickly if there's a fire burning out of control, a crime in progress at a certain location, or a traffic snarl at a particular corner. Nvidia hopes to detect such problems in smart cities using Nvidia Metropolis, which the company said could pave the way for the creation of smart artificial intelligence cities. Nvidia announced the tech ahead of its GPU Technology conference this week in San Jose, California. Metropolis is a video analytics platform that applies deep learning AI to video streams for applications such as public safety, traffic management, and resource optimization. Nvidia said that Metropolis could make cities safer, and more than 50 partner companies are already providing products and applications for AI city uses based on graphics processing units (GPUs) made by Nvidia. "Deep learning is enabling powerful intelligent video analytics that turn anonymized video into real-time valuable insights, enhancing safety and improving lives," said Deepu Talla, vice president and general manager of the Tegra business at Nvidia, in a statement.

Technology is most successful when it impacts society in a positive way, and whilst Artificial Intelligence is still a sensitive subject for some, another benevolent application for AI has been found in fighting crime. AI powered platforms are brilliant at recognising patterns, which also means that they can pick out anomalies. That's why AI is such a valuable tool for detecting fraud, for instance. It can flag up suspicious behaviours amongst datasets that are so huge, human administrators wouldn't know where to start. The latest use of the technology to combat crime isn't on the streets, or even in the courts – it's a prison that is pioneering this new high-tech approach to security.

A vast majority of recorded video data is never viewed. Adding more cameras increases the amount of video data collected, but if it's not viewed, the useful information is missed. There is an imbalance between the amount of video data collected and the human attention available to effectively mine that data. As security technology continues to evolve, exciting developments are taking place, with the inclusion of artificial intelligence (AI). Powerful tools are being created that will allow us to modify our approach to video search.

Technology is most successful when it impacts society in a positive way, and whilst Artificial Intelligence is still a sensitive subject for some, another benevolent application for AI has been found in fighting crime. AI powered platforms are brilliant at recognising patterns, which also means that they can pick out anomalies. That's why AI is such a valuable tool for detecting fraud, for instance. It can flag up suspicious behaviours amongst datasets that are so huge, human administrators wouldn't know where to start. The latest use of the technology to combat crime isn't on the streets, or even in the courts – it's a prison that is pioneering this new high-tech approach to security.