Pandemic Panic Paves the Way for CCP Surveillance Tech in American Schools
An artificial intelligence company that helped build China’s surveillance network is installing technology inside a Las Vegas school to measure student’s body temperatures as they head back to school amid a pandemic, the company said in a news release.
American AI company Remark Holdings announced a deal on Monday with the Meadows School to install thermal kits designed to test body temperatures for signs that incoming students have contracted COVID-19, according to a statement from Remark.
The system scans up to 120 people a minute and alerts personnel to individuals who could have higher than normal temperatures.
Remark, which also sells facial recognition systems, provided similar thermal scanning systems to more than 100 schools in China, Recode reported.
“Things are strange enough. Kids are going to be coming to school with masks. They’re going to be meeting friends with masks,” Jeremy Gregersen, the head of school at Meadows, told Vox blog Recode on Friday.
“What we want is for kids to feel welcome and to normalize their arrival at school as early as possible.”
Remark is also helping a Chinese supermarket group identify frequent shoppers through facial recognition software.
“They really understand and accept what AI is, and they’re ready to go,” Remark CEO Shing Tao said regarding China in a 2018 Wired report.
Police in China are also using facial recognition technology to monitor the Uighur, the country’s Muslim minority population, The New York Times reported in 2019.
Police in the central Chinese city of Sanmenxia ran a system over 500,000 times over the course of a month last year to determine whether residents were Uighur.
Remark signed a deal with Charoen Pokphand Group to implement facial recognition technology in 10,000 7-Eleven stores across Thailand to identify the faces of loyal customers and shoplifters.
The technology could potentially measure the emotions of customers, Business Insider noted in a 2018 report.
U.S. cities have used Chinese technology to enforce social distancing mandates.
Elizabeth, New Jersey, deployed drones from Chinese-based company DJI in April to warn residents walking outdoors not to get too close to other people, according to The Hill.
The drones blared sirens and said, “Stop gathering, disperse and go home.”
Neither the Meadows School nor Remark has responded to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
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A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.
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