Secure, Accurate Facial Recognition (SAFR) to enhance school
safety
SEATTLE, July 17, 2018 /CNW/ -- RealNetworks, Inc.
(NASDAQ: RNWK), a leader in digital media software and services,
today announced the free and immediate availability of SAFR™ for
K-12, an AI and machine learning based facial recognition solution
to help enhance safety in over 100,000
K-12 schools in the United
States and Canada. At no
cost, and for the first time, K-12 schools can now confidently
apply state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to better
protect the school environment. SAFR for K-12 can be downloaded by
schools beginning today at www.realnetworks.com/safr/k12. SAFR
currently supports Mac and iOS platforms, with Android and Windows
versions scheduled for release this fall.
"School safety has become one of the top national issues in
the United States in 2018," said
Rob Glaser, chairman and CEO of
RealNetworks. "We are proud to give our leading edge SAFR for K-12
technology solution to every elementary, middle, and high school in
America and Canada. We hope this
will help make schools safer."
SAFR utilizes existing IP-based cameras and readily available
hardware to recognize staff, students, and visitors in real time to
help improve school safety, while concurrently providing additional
benefits that strengthen security, such as streamlining entry,
record keeping, campus monitoring, and guest check-in. SAFR
encrypts all facial data and images to ensure privacy, and all
facial data and images remain exclusively within the school's
domain as part of, or complementary to an existing school ID
system.
Safety is an increasingly serious concern for public, private,
and charter schools. Students, teachers, staff, and parents are
also demanding thoughtful, creative solutions which contribute to
keeping schools safer. The opportunities to improve safety increase
when the school year ends. Summer provides a window for schools to
review and update existing safety systems to ensure that everything
is optimized and operational before the first day of school.
"Wyoming is unique in its
commitment to working with new innovations and America's leading
technology companies," said Wyoming Governor Matt
Mead. Tony Young, Wyoming Chief Information Officer said,
"Wyoming has a history of being at
the forefront of technological evolutions. Whether it's our
investment in statewide high-speed broadband networks, IT
infrastructure supporting our education facilities and state
infrastructure, or our connected vehicles program. More recently,
our rapid iterations with the RealNetworks team have been
exciting. SAFR provides the opportunity to utilize existing
camera systems to intelligently scale and achieve an accurate
understanding of who's entering a school campus."
The broad availability of SAFR for K-12 follows a successful
pilot program. For example, University Child Development School
(UCDS), an independent elementary school in Seattle, has been using SAFR for K-12 to grant
gate access to the school using the registered faces of parents,
guardians, and staff.
"SAFR immediately proved to be an enormously valuable asset,
helping to ensure that our open, urban campus stays secure," said
Paula Smith, head of school at
University Child Development School. "The facial recognition
solution provides parents and staff faster campus and building
access, freeing up staff so they can devote more time to student
needs."
SAFR for K-12 is available now for schools in the United States and Canada as a fully-featured and
fully-functional recognition solution. The software matches faces
from IP-based cameras with existing school registration systems.
SAFR supports existing entry and exit systems, including the
delivery of instant alerts for unauthorized access. SAFR helps
schools to focus in real time, and better analyze potential risks,
such as expelled students, substance dealers, and those who pose a
threat both from within and outside the school. It can also help
prevent vandalism and theft, vigilantly providing valuable
information through area monitoring.
SAFR has been designed to scale with high performance and fast
processing time, even in rural areas with very low bandwidth. SAFR
is adaptable, extensible, and cost efficiently meets the rapidly
evolving situational demands of school safety. Delivering
best-in-class facial recognition, SAFR leverages the latest machine
learning and AI techniques to detect and differentiate individuals
in complex surroundings. SAFR is continuously improving and
expanding in real-world environments.
Whether people are walking, running, or being partially blocked,
SAFR recognizes faces with proven 99.8 percent accuracy for Labeled
Faces in the Wild (LFW), based on the University of Massachusetts benchmark. In addition,
the June results of RealNetworks' first submission to the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), ranked SAFR's
recognition algorithm for "Wild Faces" False Non-Match Rate (FNMR),
placing it as one of the world's top recognition algorithms. NIST
is the premier measurement standards laboratory for the United States.
Building on its legacy and leadership in streaming media,
including compression, media delivery, digital rights management,
and efficient scalability, RealNetworks' expertise now extends to
AI, machine learning and deep neural networks: the foundation of
SAFR.
SAFR is free to individual charter, public, and private K-12
schools in the United States and
Canada. RealNetworks has a long
history of successfully building, launching, and sustaining free
products. In addition to the free version of SAFR for individual
schools, RealNetworks will introduce other commercial versions of
SAFR beginning in the fall of 2018. More information on SAFR is
available at www.realnetworks.com/safr/
About RealNetworks
RealNetworks creates innovative
applications and services that make it easy to connect with and
enjoy digital media. RealNetworks invented the streaming
media category and continues to connect consumers with their
digital media both directly and through partners, aiming to support
every network, device, media type and social network. Find
RealNetworks' corporate information
at www.realnetworks.com.
RealNetworks® and the company's respective logos are trademarks,
registered trademarks, or service marks of RealNetworks, Inc. Other
products and company names mentioned are the trademarks of their
respective owners.
To learn more, contact public_relations@realnetworks.com
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SOURCE RealNetworks, Inc.