The fall semester is back in session. As students and faculty return to campus, it is important to question whether your campus security is doing everything to ensure each student’s safety and security while they attend classes.
Today, schools face a variety of challenges that threaten not only the learning experience but also the safety of students and faculty. The spreading of viruses, theft, vandalism, and gun violence are very real threats to school systems and everyday campus security. With the right measures, these threats can be mitigated and managed to keep students and faculty protected.
Access Control
Technology has helped campus security evolve to offer various solutions to keep students and faculty safe at school. This upgraded security begins with access control. Administrators can efficiently grant or deny access to any school building when an access control system is implemented throughout the campus. By establishing entry permission levels and distributing access credentials, you have greater control over who enters buildings but what areas they can access once inside.
Working in tandem with other systems, access control provides detailed records of who enters what areas and when they do. This documentation can assist administrators or investigators in establishing timelines or monitoring activity for their campus in one convenient place.
Access control systems for campus security also benefit from flexibility and variety when choosing access credentials for your school. There are various options available for every campus, from standard access credentials such as access cards and key fobs to using mobile devices for access. Remember, a lot of data will be processed with access control, so ensure that the encryption of readers and credentials have been upgraded to the updated versions.
Video Surveillance
Video surveillance has been a critical component of security systems for years. While video technology has played an essential role in documenting events, advancements have led to cameras that can do so much more for campus security. If any of your cameras are over five years old, we recommend upgrading them to ensure they are performing optimally on your campus.
Security cameras now allow security personnel to take an active role in campus security instead of watching events after they have occurred. With an active video surveillance system, you, your security team, or the authorities will be able to receive alerts when there is activity in buildings or around the campus.
The way video footage is stored has also seen an upgrade in recent years with the introduction of cloud-based recording. While DVRs and NVRs are still very common, saving security footage to the cloud offers various benefits you can’t get with traditional storage methods. When footage is saved to the cloud, you automatically have a secure backup of events that you can access from any location.
Not only do you have access from anywhere, but locating the footage you need is made easier with various video search options. Gone are the days of searching through hours of footage to find a specific frame, as you can now find what you need with ease by inputting physical descriptions. These search parameters can help quickly identify vehicles or people around the campus to build timelines for events and speed up the investigation process.
Video Analytics
Surveillance cameras are only the beginning of optimizing your campus security. Through Artificial Intelligence, video analytics can identify irregular events and provide real-time alerts to campus security personnel. That’s only the beginning, though. Video analytics systems are self-learning, meaning they will continue to learn and grow the moment they are activated to work best at your site and for your needs. With video analytics, students won’t be the only ones learning as the system will continuously use data to monitor the campus and reduce false-positive alerts.
Video analytics offer the opportunity to further customize your video surveillance systems to your needs by setting rules. These rules help your system know what to look for and, in turn, alert your team about when events are noticed around campus.
Secure Your Campus With HS Tech
Nothing can compare to the safety and security of students and faculty. That’s why ensuring that your campus security plan makes the grade is critical. For over 15 years, HS Tech Group has been helping schools, businesses, and various other partners develop their security strategies. We work with each partner to determine their needs in order to develop a custom security solution to help them achieve their security goals. Contact us today and discover how we can help you secure your campus and protect students and faculty from threats.
