From the Pike County Press:
- Swim-A-Thon Benefits Humane Society
- Spelling Champ
- DVHS Trail Podcast Project Wins $500 Grant
- Analysis Shows Del Val Among Top Districts in Region
- Safe or Unsafe? Police Suggest Access to DV Security Cameras
OPINION: This bit from the safety committee meeting article, Safe or Unsafe?, was of particular interest to me:
The letter outlined findings of a May 19 safety survey of the district’s main school complex. The letter also stated a request that police be given camera access to help expedite response in case of an emergency.The thing is, DV's network already is open. Ever been to dvsd.org? The district's Web site was originally hosted on a server inside the high school, and DV World still is.
“Being able to utilize the cameras already in place in the school would increase valuable time and response, as well as being able to isolate an incident into a hallway or quadrant rather than the entire school,” wrote Stewart.
But allowing police to tap into the district’s security video system would essentially open a hole in the firewall, creating the potential for viruses, worms, hackers and other problems, officials said.
“I think it would be unwise for us to open up our network,” said Superintendent Candis Finan. “We would be vulnerable to all sorts of issues with our networks.”
Not to mention, any major company, any university and many K-12 school districts offer access over the Internet to resources on their networks. Have you been to the bank lately? Used a credit card? All of your financial data is traveling across the Internet, even if you're at the bank or charging your card in person.
It's true that the way to stay as invulnerable as possible is to keep the network closed, but it's a myth to think that opening the network is unsafe, especially for something like police access to that multi-hundred-thousand dollar video surveillance system the taxpayers funded.
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4 comments:
Attend a board meeting and explain this publicly. Thank you.
I work in a 9-1-1 center in NJ. We have access to the schools camera systems in town and a few of the businesses.
The patrol commander also has access in his patrol car. We don't sit and watch them constantly, but if a call comes in from a school for a fight, alarm, car accident, etc we connect in and see whats going on prior to ptl arrival.
Invasion of privacy
The Supreme Court has indicated that one does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public places.
You should have no expectation of privacy in school except for in a locker room or a bathroom stall. I do not understand there to be any surveillance cameras in such areas, but those areas may be monitored by school employees.
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