September 2003 — Special Feature
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Creating Safer and More Efficient Schools With Biometric Technologies
The events of the last five years make one issue of paramount importance to parents, teachers and school administrators: safety. While technology cannot provide a panacea for all such concerns - particularly those related to internal threats - it can be used to enhance security, access control and communications within schools. These safety technologies should be used in conjunction with, not instead of, proven early interventions and preventive measures such as conflict resolution, bullying prevention and proactive outreach programs.
Developing a Meaningful Security Program
Metal detectors have become increasingly common at schools in large urban districts, particularly at the higher grade levels in which 10% or more of the schools nationwide currently use such detectors (CDC 2001). Parents and community pressure will ensure that the use of such weapon-scanning technology continues to increase and expand to more schools and lower grade levels.
Another safety technology that has been around for a while is video surveillance systems. Recent advances in digital technologies have lowered the cost and complexity of such systems, making all-digital video solutions attainable for more districts. In a digital system, video images are recorded on large hard drives, eliminating the need for unreliable tapes and making it easier to view and work with footage.
However, video surveillance systems may provide an exaggerated sense of security, so it is important to remember their limitations. First, the cameras only cover small areas of the building. While it may be useful to post cameras at a school's main entry points, providing comprehensive coverage of an entire building can be quite costly and complex, requiring multiple cameras, as well as extensive wiring, storage and viewing capabilities. The second limitation of such a system is that it is not inherently preventive in nature. The presence of many cameras in a school in and of itself d'es not significantly enhance security other than providing a measure of symbolic deterrence.
To really have an impact, surveillance cameras must be a part of a meaningful security program. At its most stringent, such a program would involve real-time monitoring by one or more administrators, school resource officers or security guards. These officials would need to spend a considerable amount of time scanning the output of multiple cameras and possess the ability to respond quickly to any disturbance - steps that are obviously not practical, nor desirable, for most districts.
The other option (and the one used by most schools) is to simply record the cameras' images for later review. This system may be useful for pinpointing student perpetrators of disruptive behavior and providing a record of any intrusion or infraction, but it will not deliver real-time security enhancement.
Advances in Biometrics
The most significant advances in school security technology are in the field of biometrics - the process of positive identification through the scanning of unique body characteristics such as fingerprints, eyes, facial features or voice patterns. A few school districts have begun using biometrics for certain applications. The School District of Philadelphia began using finger scanning last year instead of time clocks to track the work hours of some of its employees (Borja 2002). A small number of educational institutions have also begun using biometric identification systems for student cafeteria purchases.
