The Lockport Central School District activated its system in January 2020 after meeting conditions set by state education officials at the time, including that no students be entered into the database of potential threats. The district stopped using the $1.4 million system later that year.
But an analysis by the Office of Information Technology Services issued last month “acknowledges that the risks of the use of in an educational setting may outweigh the benefits.” It also cited research from the nonprofit Violence Project that found that 70% of school shooters from 1980 to 2019 were current students. The technology, the report said, “may only offer the appearance of safer schools.”
Biotechnology would not stop a student from entering a school"unless an administrator or staff member first noticed that the student was in crisis, had made some sort of threat, or indicated in some other way that they could be a threat to school security,” the report said.