Encinitas Union School District to spend $189,000 on Creepy iPad facial recognition software

Remember when you were a kid and you would forget your locker combination at Oak Crest Jr High and the janitor would have to help you?

Well, now it's the 21st century, these days our kids are using iPads at school and at home.

My kids (age 5 and 7) use iPads at both home and school and they both know their 4 digit code to unlock them.

Read this astonishing story in the SDUT by Pat Maio

Parents up in arms over facial recognition software

excerpt:

The software — which uses biometric technology — scans the face of a student every 60 seconds, and automatically logs him or her into multiple programs. Officials say the technology could make iPad use easier for elementary school students who can’t remember passwords and would keep others from using the devices should they be stolen.

and,

Biometrics technology analyzes human body characteristics such as fingerprints, eye retinas and irises, voice patterns, facial patterns, and hand measurements, for authentication purposes.

In March, the Encinitas district inked a $189,000 contract with Utah-based Virtual Keyring LLC to implement the program. District officials aren’t providing details on what it will involve, other than to say that it’s in a “proof of concept” phase, according to an email provided to the Union-Tribune by David Delacalazada, the district’s director of information technology.

Myself, I try not to be fearful and reactionary to new technology. I also avoid conspiracy freak outs that are so common on Facebook these days. 

 But, this one doesn't feel right. It's too much money just to be a lost password prevention. It's too weird. It feels like our kids are lab rats to Virtual Keyring LLC.

 One thing that bothers me, our local schools constantly hammer us for donations. Our schools are in non-stop fundraising mode, the pressure on parents and local businesses is relentless all year long. "Donate now are we lose the music and garden programs!" we hear constantly.

Now, we got a $189k program that scans our children's faces?

My new iPhone already uses biometric thumb print software, and it works great, and it's included with the phone!

Hey, there is a video to watch: From the article:

“From a security point of view, biometrics prevents misappropriation of technology on the iPads in the homes of students, and ensures that mom doesn’t use it for work, or dad or older brother watch porn or play video games,” said Kephart, a former counsel for the 9/11 Commission that looked into the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks

Wait, our school district needs a $189,000 contract so mom doesn't use the school iPad for work and dad doesn't use it for porn???
Do we have evidence of all these hardworking moms and kinky dads using their kid's school iPads???

Dear Superintendent Tim Baird and Virtual Keyring President, Rod Garlick,

Stop being weird and creepy. Explain yourselves thoroughly or quit now.   
In fact, just quit. 

Check out Virtual Keyring's website, it's full of creepy!
www.virtualkeyring.com

No more Moms drinking white wine in Encinitas parks?

This is bad, mmmmmkay

FULL copy and paste from the Coast News story by Aaron Burgin: 

 ENCINITAS — Alcohol could be banned at all Encinitas Parks in the near future, as the City Council will consider drafting a ban at Wednesday’s Council meeting.

Staff is recommending the city prohibit beer and wine except for permits for moderate or large-scale events. If the council votes in favor of the recommendation, the city manager could return with code for the council’s consideration in a few weeks.

Currently, Encinitas prohibits beer and wine at four of the city’s 19 parks — Viewpoint, Glen Park, Ecke Sports Park and Cardiff-by-the-Sea Sports Park — public city beaches and beach overlooks unless they have a permit. Hard liquor is prohibited at all locations.

According to a city staff report, staff revisited its current code in the wake of the opening of the Encinitas Community Park, which is not specifically mentioned in the current ordinance.

City parks staff said they have received special-event permit requests to hold events at the park that would include alcohol sales.

City staff researched the ordinances of 11 other cities and found that 10 of them banned alcohol at all parks except if a party applied for a special events permit. The eleventh city banned alcohol outright.

Leucadia Blog reaction:

Soooooooo, in a city where the hot button issue has been drinking and partying along the now trending coast highway Encinitas district, the city is considering banning alcohol in our parks. That means all the cute yoga moms of Encinitas can no longer drink box white wine at their little kid's birthday parties.

No more mimosas in red cups!

The message from the city: drinking in parks is bad unless we are selling the drinks to you (the street fair, Art Walk, Taste of restaurant tours, Summer Fun, etc).  

Don't worry though, creepy dudes will still shoot heroin in the parks at night.

What a town!

L101 Annual Meeting TONIGHT

Leucadia 101 Main Street Annual Meeting on May 19th from 6:00-7:30 pm in the Poinsettia Room of Encinitas City Hall (505 S. Vulcan Ave).

L101 invites you to meet their volunteer Board of Directors, learn about programs and activities in Leucadia and find out about new and existing businesses. This meeting will include a 2014 year-end Leucadia 101 Main Street program review, membership information, community partnership awards and our Main Street goals for 2015. The evening will conclude with a presentation from Senior Engineer Ed Dean and Project Manager, Christy Villa regarding the status of the N. Coast Hwy 101 Streetscape project. We will leave time for questions and answers at the end. 

This event is open to the public and all are invited to attend.  Come get involved in your community! 

Hope to see you there, for more information call (760) 436-2320 or visit www.Leucadia101.com

Curiosity Nearly Kills DJ Mancat

Surely, plenty of Leucadia residents heard the Carlsbad police chopper looking for a "Felony suspect wearing a white shirt and backwards cap" yesterday. Since I couldn't find this incident in the police blotter today, I decided to repost my friend and neighbor's first hand account of the police chase. 

Meet Beau Doiron, aka DJ ManCat. Many of the reasonable questions you might have after reading his strange account can be explained by two mitigating factors: 1) Beau is part cat. This makes him overly curious in dangerous scenarios. He survives through his preternatural agility and those extra "9 lives" that protect him like a warm Teflon onesie. 2) Beau is new to Leucadia. Years of living in Solana Beach have insulated him from the harsh realities lurking west of the 101 in Leucadia where life is, as Thomas Hobbes once put it, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Take it away, Beau...   

"I heard a helicopter circling above my home in Leucadia. I could faintly hear a voice from the chopper that was clear as a Good Burger drive thru intercom. As I headed outside to get a better listen to what until now sounded like "a #4 with a liter of cola" being ordered, it was clear to me what was being announced on repeat.
"FELONY SUSPECT ON FOOT IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD WEARING WHITE SHIRT AND BACKWARDS CAP."

I gave myself the once over and observed that I was wearing a white t-shirt. But I left the house anyways. (People of color, please don't try this at home if you are in this situation).

I meandered out to the street and saw that it was blocked off with a police cruiser. I locked eyes with the cop and kinda did that thing tourists do when they are in a new city. My eyes quickly darted up at the trees and then gazed up & down my street as if to say to the cop "well, the suspect isn't in these trees or on this particular street. Also, I am not the suspect." I looked over again to make sure he was not charging at me and realized I should have just changed my shirt.

I started to head back to my place and heard a crackle behind the dumpster. The gears started shifting and I realized that behind my apartment was an open storage space of sorts. In fact, if I were in a neighborhood game of hide and seek...this would be my spot.
I approached slowly, and headed behind the dumpster and towards the "backyard" of the complex. As I peaked my head around, I saw a young man sitting down on his cell phone.
His eyes caught mine and he gave me a friendly wave. I waived back and was caught off guard by his friendliness. Was this one of my neighbors just chillin' behind the complex talking on his cell phone shirtless?
The ghetto bird had been squawking for the last 10 minutes with his description so that anyone with a bird brain would have taken off said hat and t shirt by meow.

He ended his phone call and I approached. As I got closer I could see the panic in his eyes. He started pleading (very loudly I might add) for me to take him in for refuge. His friends were on the way to pick him up and he just needed a place to hang out for a bit. As my eyes widened, he realized the weight of his request. His shoulders shrugged and his voice cracked "I'm not a bad person, I got caught with some weed...well a lot of weed. I was with my girlfriend, please just help me. I have money, I have $600 in my pocket please, please just help me."

The next 3 seconds I stood silent and had an inner monologue in my head that went something like this:

The whole wheat side needs to turn this guy in.
The frosted side of me wants to help.
Our lives are based on these split second decisions. We all try to be good people, but sometimes we make a bad decision thinking we are helping someone. The money was worthless to me. It woud be like risking a DUI that costs $20,000 because you didn't want to spend $17 on a taxi. But the compassion I felt for this human pleading gave me quite the inner struggle. As much as I wanted to help, I couldn't risk my own well being. I had a 2 year old cat at home and an aloe vera plant that has seen better days.

I told him to just hold on a second as I started backing away. His body language shifted and now he was thinking I was going to give off a scream to rival an angry goat to alert the near by police of his presence. He stood up.

As I took a step back, he took a step forward.
I plead with him to just stay put and the gravity of this situation started to sink in. As much as I would have liked to think he didn't have a gun, did they really have a chopper out and roads closed over some weed?

I let him know that cops were everywhere and on the street next to us. He kept matching my steps. We were getting further out into plain view.

I stop. He stops.
I told him, I don't know what I can do to help you but if you follow me out in front of the complex they will see you. I took a couple more steps back until I was now by the dumpster where I had the great idea to go investigate what the crackle was.

At this point I looked up the street and saw a police officer in full body gear and gun in hand walking down towards us. Since there were trees in between us, both the cop and the kid could see me but they could not see each other.
I now encountered a most awkward moment. A cop looking at me charging down the street with a gun in his hand and the suspect looking at me like a lost puppy dog.

As a puppy dog would, he started coming closer to me and all I could do was give him a look of sit, ubu, sit.
I was in clear view of the cop whose eye line was just about to see a shirt-less human puppy that I had just inadvertently pulled out of hiding.

I knew he was seconds away from being spotted when I heard,
"PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR, GET DOWN ON THE GROUND NOW!"

As the cops gun was drawn and pointed at the young man, I turned away in what could only be described as an awkward and confused Keyser Söze walk. Another cop pulled out his weapon from the other end of the street and unfortunately, from my angle, I was getting caught in the cross hairs between him and the young man.

I backpedaled my feet until I was 10 yards away where I was greeted by my neighbors who were now coming out of their respective apartments.
They asked "what happened?!!" Not really sure how to articulate what just went down, I gave them a shrug like Michael Jordan did vs. Portland in the '92 finals and sat back with them to watch the rest of the the arrest.

No cops harmed, suspect was detained and I learned that with enough fear in me, I can moonwalk.

Moral of the story: if you hear a chopper outside, lock your door and stay inside."

Additional moral to the story: sometimes the paddy wagons leave behind souvenirs.

We here at the Leucadia Blog are sure glad they didn't sic the K-9's.

Stay safe Leucadia!!!

You totally can't cross the train tracks in Leucadia Bro

You can't do this. NO NO NO

San Clemente has two pedestrian only crossings.

READ the Encinitas Advocate story: Citations on rise for pedestrians crossing tracks illegally in Encinitas

*this post has been updated with photos on 5-19-15

Leucadia Parking Job Award Winner