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Facing Backlash, UCLA Cancels Plan to Use Facial Recognition Technology on Campus

16 New Reported Coronavirus Cases Spark Fear in Italy

Italian authorities reported 16 cases of the new coronavirus on Friday, as the country grappled with the surge after having just three total confirmed one day earlier. Six patients were in the northern town of Codogno, prompting bars, schools, and offices to shut down for up to five days under an order from the mayor to try to stop the spread of the new virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease. Three of the six patients, including a 38-year-old who is intensive care, are showing symptoms, while three others were re-tested to confirm the results, reported The Local. Discovery of the cases “has created a situation of alarm throughout the municipality,” Codogno Mayor Francesco Passerini said. The transmission of the new cases isn’t confirmed but authorities said the man in intensive care…

Facing Backlash, UCLA Cancels Plan to Use Facial Recognition Technology on Campus

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the first university in the United States to openly propose using facial recognition cameras, has now decided to back down on that plan due to backlash from student community.

“UCLA will not pursue the use of this technology,” UCLA Executive Vice President Michael Beck wrote in a statement released to CNet. “We have determined that the potential benefits are limited and vastly outweighed by the concerns of our campus community.”

UCLA officials expressed interest in facial recognition technology last year, according to student newspaper the Daily Burin. Beck said at a panel discussion with students and police officers that facial recognition software might be added to the existing security system. If implemented, the software would be used as an extra layer of authentication for restricted areas on campus, and for identifying anyone flagged with a “stay-away order,” such as as students’ domestic abusers who are banned from entering the school grounds.

In one draft of the proposed security camera policy shared online, the UCLA said it would consider using facial recognition in a “limited” capacity. The match would be examined by a human before any official determination of someone’s identity could be made.

However, the planned implementation of the facial recognition software raised privacy concerns, prompting UCLA students to voice their opposition at a town hall meeting in late January. The editorial board at the Daily Bruin聽compared the program with “telescreens” from George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” while some students teamed up with civil liberty advocacy group Fight For the Future to plan a protest in March. Illegal immigrant students also feared the biometric data used in facial recognition systems might one day be acquired by immigration agents to use against them and their families.

Evan Greer, Fight for the Future’s deputy director, said in a Feb. 20 statement that they “will not stop organizing activities until facial recognition is banned on every campus,” encouraging other universities to heed UCLA’s decision.

Several universities in the state of California have utilized facial recognition technology for campus security and other purposes. At the University of Southern California, students have to scan their faces to enter their dorms. Stanford University briefly introduced a facial recognition system for one of its food vendors, allowing customers to quickly re-order previous meals.聽The University of San Francisco, a private Jesuit institution, installed facial recognition cameras at the entrances of residence halls, but discontinued that practice in 2016.

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34 Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in the United States: CDC

Thirty-four patients have tested positive for the new coronavirus in the United States, federal officials said on Friday, after another patient tested positive late Thursday. Twenty-one of the patients were repatriated from foreign countries by the State Department. Groups were quarantined at military bases after being repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, where hundreds of infections emerged, and Wuhan, China, where the virus first emerged in December 2019. All but three of the 21 patients were passengers on the ship, which is docked in Yokohama, Japan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The other 13 patients weren’t among the groups that were repatriated. The number is one less than the number that the CDC has listed on its website as of Friday afternoon. The last patient…