As crime increases, South African schools and tertiary education institutions find themselves in an ongoing battle to secure their premises more effectively and keep children and students safe. However, adding more electric fencing, razor wire and armed guards does not create a warm and welcoming learning environment. Instead, schools and campuses should focus on advanced digital safeguards that provide enhanced situational awareness and more effective yet unobtrusive protection.
By deploying solutions such as AI-enabled digital identity platforms, advanced facial recognition with liveness detection, and multifaceted environmental and audio sensors, educational institutions can use these new technologies as a force multiplier to enhance the impact of their existing security systems, such as CCTV cameras.
Securing early education
In early learning centres and primary schools, kidnapping is a growing concern. Across South Africa, 4771 people were kidnapped for ransom, extortion or human trafficking in just three months, from October to December last year, according to SAPS[1].
As educators seek to secure their schools without making them feel like prisons for children, digital identity and facial recognition technologies offer a simple, yet state-of-the-art, solution.
By enrolling learners, parents and guardians in a digital identity system, schools can build databases of who is authorised to be on the premises and who may collect each child. Facial recognition technology, integrated into the school’s CCTV cameras, allows schools to check that children are leaving with authorised caregivers.
If we add a further layer of intelligence, in which the vehicle’s number plate and the face of the person authorised to collect that child are validated against the digital identity system, we can reduce risk without increasing walls or physical security measures.
Digital identity and facial recognition integrated into CCTV camera systems also allow schools to better protect visitors and proactively manage who is on site. They can support visitor verification for events, repeat-presence detection near gates, post-incident reconstruction by extracting faces present during specific time windows, and alerts about risky behaviour and rule-breaking.
Proactive safety and security in senior education
At high schools, universities and TVET colleges, gender-based violence, crime, gangsterism and violent activism are major concerns. Higher Health, an agency of the Department of Higher Education and Training, has described GBV within the PSET system as a ‘scourge’[2], while Ciska Jordaan MP has stated[3], “In a sample of only 7165 rape crime scenes, 106 rapes took place on the premises of schools, universities, day-care facilities and colleges.” Schools and tertiary education institutions also report growing levels of lawlessness on campuses.
With advanced digital identity and facial recognition technology, security teams can spot unauthorised individuals on the property and identify perpetrators of on-campus crimes.
In higher education environments, where hundreds or thousands of people are often present, it can be difficult for security to control and identify participants in violent protests, for example. Digital identity systems with advanced facial recognition can help distinguish students from outsiders during registration surges and protests. Weapon detection and other analytics can be used to flag armed individuals in real time, and combining facial, number-plate and entry-point data can help security reconstruct incidents and build watchlists for repeat offenders.
Advanced systems also allow institutions to monitor activities where CCTV cameras would not be appropriate, such as hostel sleeping areas and bathrooms. Integrated environmental and audio sensors can detect vaping, smoking, fights and gunshots, raise alerts, and link to external cameras for identification when occupants exit these sensitive areas.
Facial recognition systems can also help reduce exam fraud by verifying that the student enrolled in the digital identity system is the one writing the exam. These systems can be used for roll call and student monitoring in environments where turnstiles and fingerprint access would slow down processes. Potential use cases for this type of monitoring include tracking whether bursary beneficiaries are actually attending lectures and understanding why particular students are struggling.
These systems can also be used to plan and enhance on-campus activations and promotions by enabling organisers to understand where and when students congregate.
By enhancing existing systems with intelligent monitoring, digital identity, and facial recognition, schools and tertiary institutions can offer more secure and welcoming environments that enable children and students to focus on learning and development.
Resources
[2] Health GBV
[3]Minister of Police must address the alarming crime rates in educational institutions
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