Pittsburgh-based CurvePoint developed AI that harnesses Wi-Fi for ’spatial intelligence,’ which the company claims can locate concealed weapons on students.
A Pennsylvania school district is using artificial intelligence (AI) to keep guns off of its campuses. But civil liberties advocates warn the technology could lead to mass surveillance and violation of constitutional rights.
The Chartiers Valley School District, in Allegheny County, has implemented AI that harnesses the district’s Wi-Fi signals to determine if people are carrying weapons as they enter the schools.
The technology, called Wi-AI, was developed by CurvePoint of Pittsburgh. CurvePoint grew out of AI research at Carnegie Mellon University.
According to the company, Wi-AI uses “spatial intelligence” to find weapons, such as guns, before they are able to enter a school.
The AI system analyzes a space and detects where potential weapons are located by interpreting “how Wi-Fi signals reflect off people and objects.”
Once a possible weapon is found, security personnel, school administrators, or others, can go to the location to determine if there is actually a threat.
It is now in use at Chartiers Valley School District high school, middle school, and primary school campuses. CurvePoint CEO Skip Smith said that in a recent test, the system found a pistol hidden in a backpack. He said the technology has a 95 percent success rate, failing only four percent of its searches.
Smith said the Wi-AI doesn’t carry the same privacy concerns of other security systems because it doesn’t rely on facial recognition or biometric data.
“We don’t know it’s you. We have no biometric information about you. Our system just sees a big bag of salt water,” Smith told The Epoch Times.
Darren Mariano, president of the Chartiers Valley School Board, said the district is excited to be the first in the country to adopt the technology.
“The safety of our students and staff is always our top priority,” he stated in the press release. “We’re thrilled to be the first district in the nation to implement this groundbreaking technology.”
But some say the technology should be approached with caution.
Jeremy Rovinsky is a constitutional law professor at Crestpoint University, in Phoenix. He said that the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure apply to public school students, though the standard is slightly different in a school setting.
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