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Surveillance in education

Hi-Tech Security Solutions: What role is surveillance technology playing in integrated security solutions in the education market? How is CCTV being combined with innovative software to create safer educational environments?

Laurence Smith: With the recently publicised incidents of bullying and attacks on teachers in schools, the need for the CCTV systems within school environments is apparent. It is essential for CCTV to be deployed in multiple areas in learning environments and currently, a few schools are adopting this method of monitoring. A few examples include:

* CCTV on school buses is being deployed to monitor the safety of children and assist with the monitoring of bullying and vandalism on these buses. It is also being used to monitor reckless driving and ensure action is taken against drivers who do not follow the rules of the road.

* Perimeter monitoring of the schools with CCTV cameras assists security personnel to ensure that the school premises are safe and allows them to take action when incidents occur.

* Monitoring of classrooms and school property for theft, vandalism and bullying.

* With the correct equipment, all the above can be achieved both at the school as well as remotely by an offsite security company, further ensuring maximum security and monitoring within a school or learning environment.

HSS: Are these solutions something we find in more schools and universities, or are they still reserved for the expensive private institutions?

Laurence Smith: We are seeing the price point of these solutions dropping which makes them more affordable and available to a broader market including the entire education sector.

HSS: Looking ahead, can you describe some of the solutions we could see applied to the education market over the next few years?

Laurence Smith: Due to the recently publicised incidents of bullying and attacks on teachers and students, it is likely that the rollout of CCTV will increase in school environments. Critical to this is the ability to offer cost effective solutions with the ability to monitor footage from an offsite location using limited bandwidth. This is vital as onsite monitoring requires dedicated staff at each school. However, by utilising offsite monitoring it enables schools to benefit from cost reductions as a shared resource can be used to monitor footage offsite for more than one company or institution. Integration of CCTV together with other technologies, like biometric readers and alarm systems, will also feature prominently going forward.

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