Even though the trend across the country is for businesses and local governments to now be in the process of dropping pandemic restrictions, Guilford County government this week added a new requirement for anyone attending a Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting.
In addition to the bag search, the walk through a metal detector – and, of course, a wand search (since the metal detector seems to beep every time) – now there’s another layer of surveillance. Members of the public attending a Guilford County commissioners meeting now have to stand and face a high-tech infra-red heat-sensitive camera that will, on a monitor, display a red or green dot on your head. Green means your temperature is acceptable and you can go in; red means leave the building immediately before you infect everyone.
The thermal detection cameras were first put in use in selected places in county-owned buildings last fall, and now, with the Board of Commissioners opening up their meetings to a limited number of members of the general public for the first time in over a year, there’s a camera mounted at the public entrance to the building.
The cameras are said to be accurate to .1 degree and, under ideal conditions, can take a temperature reading in about one second.
Two county employees at the Thursday, May 20 county commissioners meeting said that now county employees have to constantly have their temperature taken remotely.
“It’s every time we go out and come back in a building,” one employee said.
If they are walking too fast for an accurate read, or if they, say, bring a hot cup of coffee up to their face while the camera is taking their temperature, they’ll be delayed by security and made to stand and face the camera to get an accurate reading.
The first phase of implementation of the system included 21 cameras and smart “Artificial-Intelligence” software at a cost of about $420,000. In addition to the cost of the actual system, there are other costs as well – such as that of training county employees or hiring new ones – and paying them to monitor the images of people entering buildings.
Some county commissioners asked last year if the expensive cameras were necessary since the pandemic will likely be over one day. County staff who supported making the purchase stated that the cameras are also very good security cameras and they therefore increase safety in Guilford County buildings.
One county employee said that the new camera surveillance is certainly going to keep dedicated employees from trying to show up for work when they’re running a fever.
“No more days of coming to work with a 105-degree temperature because something has to get done,” he said.
Now if only these cameras could detect stupidity they would be worth the money. Be sure that there is a camera near each City Council member’s desk. And there should be a lie detector connected to each of their seats too.
Did you see Johnny Carson giving a political speech? Attached was a device that would HONK every time he lied.
Boondoggle…
Don’t fret about it. Just give it a couple years and you’re going to be able to buy the whole system for pennies on the dollar. What a stupid way to waste a 1/2 million dollars
That is absolutely crazy. Why do government employees always think their lives are more important than everyone elses? The whole “take off your belt, empty your pockets, go through the metal detector” thing was ridiculous, doing nothing but add immense costs and taking up people’s time. Now this insanity. If businesses thought like government employees, society would grind to a halt.
Wait a minute haven’t you never heard “ I’m” from the government and I’m here to help
They will soon be subtly changed over to eye or facial recognition scanners without notification to those with no need to know.
$420,000 for their state of the art cootie detector complete with trained professionals to know red light from green light. When I was in the second grade we made “cootie detectors” with one sheet of intricately folded paper and a pencil. Back then I believe all the boys had the cooties, but not so much the girls. Cost was,,,(calculating) ….one cent tops. The pencil was multi functional, so I did not add that into the cost, but if I did add new pencil cost for each cootie detector, as of course the government would do, the price would spike to 6 cents each for the bare bones pencil edition. (The Deluxe Color Version will blow the budget up completely) Second graders performing cootie detecting are obviously a better value and as I remember, very proficient. You could actually SEE those cooties, and you knew to avoid those boys who tested positive. Those boy cooties had teeth and claws with dripping blood and not pretty at all. But all good things must end and 21st century “security” means spending $419.999.94 more for a fancy-schmancy red/green light system. Progress.