Rolling River Day Camp in East Rockaway participating in facial recognition program

Jack Eichinger receives text messages whenever his 3-year-old son, Elijah, is recognized in any photograph that Rolling River Day Camp uploads to Waldo Photos. He receives messages because he is enrolled in Waldo Photos’ facial recognition program.
“I decided to sign up for it because my child is 3,” he said. “He doesn’t give me much information about his day at camp.”
But with Waldo, Eichinger can see what Elijah does each day that he’s at Rolling River, in East Rockaway. He said that he enjoys being able to find the photos of Elijah to see the fun he is having during the summer.
“It’s a lot of fun to use and it’s exciting to get new pictures of my son everyday,” he said.
Rolling River is one of more than 100 camps in 33 states that use the program. Marissa Allaben, a co-director for the camp, said that she and other administrators decided to implement the program after they saw a presentation by Waldo Photos at a summer camp conference. She said that they liked the program because they “thought it was a nice upgrade from the system we had,” whereby parents would have to scroll through Rolling River’s photo gallery to find pictures of their children.

The camp also benefits because it receives an algorithm to ensure that every camper is being photographed. And parents benefit, according to Waldo Photos CEO Rodney Rice, because they do not have to spend time scrolling through hundreds of photos to find their son or daughter.
“For me, it’s an awesome win-win for everybody,” he said.
Rice said the program works by having a parent or guardian pay $4 a week after sending the camp a photograph of their child. The program then creates an algorithm to identify the child’s face, and whenever a photo matching it is uploaded, the parent receives a text. The algorithms cannot be used by other applications, Rice noted.
“Waldo’s a walled garden,” he said, adding that people should not be afraid of the facial recognition feature. “… I think the misconception around facial recognition is that people think it’s like a fingerprint, [but] that’s not how it works. You can’t really be harmed by it.”
Waldo is an optional program for the parents at the camp. Those who do not sign up could still see Rolling River’s photo gallery on Waldo Photos.
Instructions to sign up for Rolling River’s Waldo program are at www.rollingriver.com/blog/waldo-photos-tips-n-tricks.