Digital Smarts - Fusion Centers, School Safety and Privacy

You are here

Error message

  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$bin is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->__construct() (line 30 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$wildcard_flushes is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 637 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$invalidate is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 638 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$cache_lifetime is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 639 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$cache_flush is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 640 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$cache_content_flush is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 641 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$cache_temporary_flush is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 642 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).
  • Deprecated function: Creation of dynamic property MemCacheDrupal::$flushed is deprecated in MemCacheDrupal->reloadVariables() (line 643 of /var/www/html/docroot/sites/all/modules/contrib/memcache/memcache.inc).

A national network of "fusion centers" -- secret facilities that gather information to help support public safety -- are working to help stop school shootings before they occur. While this may sound like a big advancement for school safety, EdSurge reports that the work that includes culling social media and data to identify threats and predict where school shootings may happen has actually created debate among privacy experts and advocates. They worry that there is a risk of misidentifying students as threats. Experts note slang words that are not threat related often appear in texts such as ‘I killed that test’ or ‘these shoes are the bomb’. Calls to open more of these monitoring centers are increasing as the number of school shootings rises.