Page 38 - Campus Security & Life Safety, March/April 2019

“Facial recognition works seamlessly and unobtrusively for both visitors and school employees...”
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campuslifesecurity.com | March/April 2019
How Facial Recognition
By Mike Vance
Can Provide Secure
Access for K-12 Schools
Advanced technology like facial recognition can streamline campus access in a secure fashion
Keeping students and staff safe while they’re at school is critically important for public, private, and charter school leaders—and controlling who has access to the building is a fundamental element of any school safety plan. As K-12 leaders look for ways to secure their facilities and ensure that only authorized visitors can enter, a grow- ing number are turning to AI-powered facial recognition technol- ogy for this task.
With the tragic events at Sandy Hook, Parkland, and other school communities lingering in everyone’s minds, many schools have installed access control systems that require an office employee to grant access to parents and other visitors by pressing a button that unlocks the front gate or door. But most schools that have adopted this approach have found it to be a cumbersome and labor-intensive
solution. A buzzer system has to be constantly monitored, because parents are frequently dropping their children off late or picking them up early—and other visitors constantly come and go through- out the school day.
Facial recognition technology can help streamline this process. It works seamlessly and unobtrusively for both visitors and school employees, cutting the amount of time that office staff must spend on letting people into the building.
Using a school’s existing IP cameras, the software scans the face of someone approaching the front door and compares it to a database of authorized visitors. If a match is found, the system unlocks the door automatically: this process takes less than a second. If no match is found, then the person would press the doorbell and be admitted into the school manually as before.
secured access
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