Uvalde schools boost security with artificial intelligence gun detection system

UVALDE, TEXAS (KXAN) -- Artificial intelligence will soon help Uvalde CISD monitor its campus cameras in an effort to bolster security at schools.

Three years after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary left 19 students and two teachers dead, an AI gun detection company is giving the district its technology and services for free as part of a grant.

Omnilert scans live indoor and outdoor camera feeds, monitoring for the presence of a gun. If a firearm is detected, a human then verifies what's on the video before activating a safety response plan that includes notifying first responders.

Omnilert CEO Dave Fraser spoke with KXAN about the technology and new partnership.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Tom Miller: How does your technology work when it comes to detecting a gun on or outside of a campus, and how does it flag a school district or law enforcement?

Dave Fraser: Many institutions are equipped with security cameras, but most of them are not being monitored by anybody.

Our system is an artificial intelligence product that simply monitors those video cameras 24/7, and the only thing it is looking for is the presence of a firearm. As soon as it becomes visible to a camera, it sets off a series of actions with the intent of allowing a preventative response to be mounted.

The image, a short video, and the location are sent to a human being. That person will determine whether it's a true gun threat or not. If they say yes, it is, then the next stage kicks in, which is to inform first responders, inform school staff, students, but importantly, to set off additional automated security steps, which could be things like locking doors, or setting off sirens.

Tom: How did you decide to partner with the Uvalde school district, and how was that received by the district?

Dave: We felt very strongly--particularly with the tragedy that occurred in Uvalde--that it made sense for us to create a grant program specifically for these types of school districts that have already been impacted by a tragedy. We called it the Safe Havens program. Uvalde is the first recipient of that.

We'll be providing all of the system, including the service and all the training and any hardware that comes along to support it for the next three years, completely free of charge. We were thrilled to be able to do that in partnership with Uvalde.

Tom: I would imagine some parents don't want AI scanning video of their children every day, and they have privacy concerns. What do you say to those parents?

Dave: I completely understand the concern around privacy, and our system is designed specifically for sensitive environments, such as schools. We have over 500 different schools using the technology today.

It's important that there's absolutely no form of biometrics or facial recognition, nothing that makes a human being, individually or personally, recognizable at all in our system. All it's doing is it's looking for the shape of a human being holding a brandished firearm. The only thing it's looking for is guns, and it doesn't store anything that is recognizable.

Tom: How quickly is this catching on with other school districts or potentially city governments, where you could use this in public spaces, or even private sector businesses?

Dave: I think the school market was really the first market to move as a result of tragedies like Uvalde, unfortunately. There was a lot of stimulus from federal and state governments as interest grew.

Beyond its use in the education market, it's spread into things like hospitals. There's just an amazing amount of gun violence in emergency rooms and beyond. Into transportation, into airports, and other types of systems like that, and into private businesses.

There are more than 90 million security cameras in the United States. Less than one percent of them are monitored. It speaks to the broad applicability to go in and help transform those security cameras into something that can prevent tragedy, not just be used to investigate it afterwards.