Aspen Policy Academy

• Ora Tanner
• Erica Greene

Florida lawmakers legislated a central database called the Florida Schools Safety Portal (FSSP), pulling student information from disparate data sets. The portal intends to flag warning signs in students who may undertake mass school shootings and intervene before they act.

However, preventing school shootings through data is fraught with ethical and technical risks, including a lack of data quality and the potential for biases across multiple levels of predictive algorithms. This project recommends that procedures be established to prevent prejudices against student groups that are disproportionately impacted by digital surveillance technologies and increased policing, and guidelines be developed that will maintain transparency and accountability to the public as to how the FSSP will operate.

Click right to download an operational plan for how FSSP should be implemented, to view an interactive video about FSSP, to download one-pagers for parents and students, and to read the op-ed and public comment.