Lawton Public Schools combats AI deepfakes with filter

Technology is destined supposed to improve lives. The artificial intelligence (AI) people use to help with homework can also be used to power robots.

But not all technology is great.

In a Politico article published in late May, a former Indianapolis teacher was the victim of a deepfake. Her face was posted on a nude woman’s body using AI. The woman had to quit her job and has felt unsafe going into a classroom since then.

With this in mind, it’s a question as to how schools are can best handle the problem.

Vanessa Perez, Assistant Director of Educational Technology for Lawton Public Schools, said they have a filter named “Gaggle” that finds explicit content and quarantines the files from student access. Once that happens, LPS officials are notified and appropriate disciplinary measures can be taken by the principal and, in some cases, the guidance counselor.

LPS is teaching its students about ways to prevent deepfakes and other forms of cyberbullying, Perez said.

“We’re educating our students that, as users of the internet and as digital citizens, that is not the right thing to do,” Perez said. “We do a number of methods . ..including using Common Sense Media lessons. It’s a part of the requirement that, as a public institution, we have to follow CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) and COPA (Child Online Protection Act) and provide those lessons”

Common Sense Media is an organization that works to improve children’s safety in media and technology, Perez said, adding the repercussions of deepfakes can affect a student’s mental health.

“(Victims and families) will receive the same level of support and care through our staff that they would for other incidents of harm,” Perez said. “They would have access to our counselors, teachers and experts.”

Dr. Jason James, Chief Operating Officer at LPS, said the app is pretty successful.

“Gaggle is really effective in the fact that it’s a proactive entity that kids don’t even have to search for something,” James said. “As soon as they go to type in something, Gaggle recognizes the keystrokes and then alerts the school before an event can even happen. If a kid wants to Google ‘best way to build a bomb’ but they don’t hit enter, we’re going to get an alert.”

James said there’s multiple layers of defense. First, it stops the student from executing the request. Second, it protects the potential victim of the assault. Third, LPS employees are notified of the intent so they can investigate, educate and correct, if need be.

James said the app stays in the cloud on all devices.

“It’s a filter,” James said. “All of our internet and devices are programmed so everything that goes internal and external is routed through servers with the Gaggle filter on it. If I have a (school) computer and I’m on vacation in Hawaii, if I typed ‘Where’s the best place to eat in Hawaii,’ that signal is coming all the way back to Lawton through our servers that have Gaggle on it.”