by mapi
“ASU officials announced the plans at a news conference today and demonstrated the first station, set up in the John Garrick Hardy Student Center. The university, which resumed on-campus classes about two weeks ago, will buy five of the stations and place them in high-traffic areas on campus, ASU President Quinton Ross said.”
“The readings are anonymous, the university said. The stations will provide ASU with data on the number of people screened, the number with elevated temperatures and vital signs and the time it took for each screening.”
“The smart device is contactless, reads temperatures in about 30 seconds and requires only that individuals remove all face coverings, including glasses. No data is collected, and images are not stored.”
“Vital Intelligence is a data platform that turns an existing camera into a touchless symptom detection system, measuring vital signs and social distancing.”
Just how much ‘vital intelligence’ are DraganFly scanners collecting? A lot more than universities want the public to know.
“The proprietary system assesses temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and cough detection to clue you into visitors who might put other patrons at risk of infection.”
“Alabama Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton said he would like to see the screening stations used in K-12 public schools to help allow the return of more classroom instruction, especially in areas like his district that have limited access to the virtual classes. Former state Sen. Gerald Dial of Lineville, who spoke at the news conference, also said K-12 schools could be using the technology to allow more in-person classes.”
“Cardiac signatures are already used for security identification. The Canadian company Nymi has developed a wrist-worn pulse sensor as an alternative to fingerprint identification.”
As The Economist pointed out “people can be identified at a distance by their heartbeat.”
The future of everyone’s privacy depends on people asking questions about thermal imaging/heartbeat monitoring technology and not assuming it does what the news and public officials say it does.
Is this technology really being used to keep the public safe or will officials use it to identify everyone? Only time will tell.