A middle school’s facial recognition database exposes student data
The database contains records for 1.3 million people, including students, teachers, cleaners and security personnel
China's internet is known for its lax security, so it's surprisingly easy to find all kinds of things there if you know where to look. And one security researcher recently unearthed a disturbing trove of photos, ID and student numbers, GPS locations, and even school grades belonging to teenagers.
GDI Foundation security researcher Victor Gevers uncovered an unsecured facial recognition database in China belonging to Ruoergai Middle School in Sichuan province. It was left open to the internet, with no firewall or authentication methods protecting it, according to Gevers.
The database contained high-resolution pictures used to train the facial recognition system alongside much more private information of students.
“The database had information like ID numbers of the document, student number, nationality, gender, telephone numbers, grades, class, when they passed a certain checkpoint,” Gevers said.
The system, maintained by a platform called Xiaoan Yundun, covered 1.3 million people, including teachers, cleaners and security personnel.
