All Russian schools will soon have facial recognition cameras that will be deployed to ensure students are safe at school, the Vedomosti business daily reports.
The surveillance cameras, named “Orwell,” will be installed in more than 43,000 schools. The cost of the surveillance system totals more than $25 million, according to the newspaper.
The state technology firm Rusnano’s Orwell system uses image recognition and computer vision algorithms. It will be integrated with face recognition developed by NTechLab, a subsidiary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s close associate Sergei Chemezov’s Rostec conglomerate.
Yevgeny Lapshev, a spokesman for Rusnano’s subsidiary Elvees Neotech, said the technology will ensure children’s safety because it is capable of identifying any outsiders who enter the school.
Lapshev said the school databases would be stored locally to avoid leaks. He said parents and children won’t be added to the program without consent.
A spokesperson for NTechLab told Vedomosti that in the future, the technology could be used to take attendance, monitor teachers’ working hours and could even be used for distance learning.
So, far 1,608 schools have “Orwell.” One school needs about 20 cameras to be fully protected by the system.
It is unclear when the rest of the country’s schools will receive the technology.
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