Security technology company Evolv, used by Pennsylvania school districts, comes under fire
AMBRIDGE, Pa. (KDKA) — The Ambridge Area School District recently purchased a security system touted for its ability to detect guns and knives while allowing other metal objects to pass through.
But a recent KDKA Investigation challenged those claims, and the company finds itself under fire.
Evolv is a company and a security system under fire. Its CEO was recently fired in the wake of two federal investigations and a class action suit by shareholders alleging it misrepresented its ability to detect weapons.
"The company misrepresented much of what the technologies could and couldn't do," said Donald Maye of IPVM, a security and technology group. "A lot of their claims did mislead the public. They said it was touchless, seamless, that they had the signatures for all the weapons in the world."
Sold on its convenience over the hassle of traditional metal detectors, PNC Park, Acrisure Stadium and Kennywood have adopted the system for its ability to quickly scan thousands of people. However, an independent study obtained by KDKA Investigates found it failed to detect 42 percent of knives and a small number of guns.
After the Utica City School System in New York purchased the Evolv system, the district said it failed to detect a gun and multiple knives. The district sued after a student smuggled a hunting knife into the high school and attacked another, stabbing him several times.
In a statement to KDKA-TV, Evolv said in the Ambridge case the system "performed as intended and alerted on the student's backpack," but the district failed to find the gun inside.
IPVM said failures of the system have forced users to turn up the sensitivity of the scanning, resulting in a high false alarm rate and putting a burden on teachers to search backpacks.
Now, the Ambridge Area School District is alerting parents not to have their children bring any metal objects to school.
"We can't have three-ring binders in school any more because this weapons detector can't differential it from a weapon. I'd like to know if the school district was briefed on that when they decided to purchase the system," Maye said.
As its name implies, Evolv said its technology has been evolving and getting better, but now it is under fire from federal agencies.
