USA

BlackSky Technology Inc. has secured a $24 million, four-year delivery order from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as part of the Luno A Facility Operational Monitoring (FOMO) programme. BlackSky will use its AI-powered monitoring system to track changes in activity at global

Sierra Space has been contracted by the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command to design next-gen “Resilient GPS” (R‑GPS) satellites. These are smaller, cost‑effective satellites intended to bolster the existing GPS constellation and protect them against jamming and spoofing by adversaries. The R

Draganfly Inc. has secured a contract with the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department to deploy drones for enhanced surveillance and rapid-response missions along the southern U.S. border. According to the company, the initiative “positions Cochise County as a national model for technology-enabled

Leading AI company OpenAI is to provide generative AI capabilities in addressing security challenges in both frontline warfighting efforts and office business functions for the US Department of Defense. The project is estimated to run until July 2026. It marks the first collaboration for OpenAI

The Utah State Board of Education has approved a $3 million contract with Utah-based AEGIX Global that will let K-12 schools in the state apply for funding for AI gun detection software from ZeroEyes for up to four cameras per school. The software will work with the schools' existing camera systems

The United School Administrators of Kansas, who represent more than 2,000 administrators in the state, are partnering with Seattle-based Indicio to install its Indicio Proven product, which will issue and verify transcripts and other records with ID verification. Link to article Publication

Public documents show that US school districts have for years been buying phone cracking tools from companies like Cellebrite and Oxygen Forensics. The equipment enables school district employees to search students’ personal devices. In one example, the Los Angeles Unified School District says its

The United School Administrators of Kansas, who represent more than 2,000 administrators in the state, are partnering with Seattle-based Indicio to install its Indicio Proven product, which will issue and verify transcripts and other records with ID verification. Link to article Publication

Skeptics at an education conference pushed parents to question AI vendors' pitches instead of gambling children's privacy for promises of increased on-campus safety. Even so, schools are increasingly upgrading surveillance systems to incorporate AI and biometrics in the name of safety. Link to

The Indian online educational services company Byju, which sells a live online one-on-one learning platform in the US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico, has aggressive plans to expand in the US and is seeking acquisitions there and in the UK and Australia. In 2021, it acquired the digital reading

The ACLU of Maine has criticised the Caribou school district and the Pennsylvania-based biometric education company IdentiMetrics for mishandling a contract by not laying out clear plans for protecting student data. The contract was to supply a biometric finger scanner to track student attendance

Schools in New Jersey and Wisconsin are installing Singlewire Software’s Visitor Aware, visitor management software that includes facial recognition and ID scanning, and collects visitors’ names, ID documents, date of birth, address, gender, and a facial photo, which it uses to check against the

A coalition of 33 civil rights, disabilities, privacy, and education advocacy groups are pushing the state of Florida to stop developing the Florida Schools Safety Portal, a database of detailed information about students for the claimed purpose of preventing school shootings, calling it a "massive

A 12-year-old boy and his parent worked out how to game the grading algorithm used by the testing software Edgenuity by including a list of keywords alongisde two full sentences in responses to short-answer questions. Students at others of the more than 20,000 schools that use Edgenuity use this and

A new report finds that monitoring software is in wide use in US K-12 schools, and that teachers, parents, and students generally believe the benefits outweigh the risks while still expressing some privacy and equity concerns. The authors recommend transparency, data minimisation, and mitigation of

Google is working to extend the lifespan of Chromebooks by providing software updates for up to a decade. The new policy, which will begin in 2024, will ensure that no current Chromebook expires in the next two years. The expiration dates were proving expensive for schools, which were having to