Privacy Issue in School Background Check Kiosks?

Students of Edmond Public Schools are back in class.  They were greeted Friday with new technology aimed at keeping them safe. LobbyGuards have been set up on every campus to do background checks on visitors before allowing access to the building or students.  Along with an increase in security, there is a question about privacy.

"They're going to have to store this data that they obtain from every parent, every time them come into the school... and they're going to have all of this personal data about  you, and is that data going to be truly stored confidentially?" Fox 25 Legal Analyst David Slane said.

Slane said the school would assume liability for any breach in confidentiality.

LobbyGuard Solutions said it's systems are secure.  An employee told Fox 25 that the company encrypts all information on it's end with as much security as financial computer systems.  But it said how customers, like Edmond Schools, decide to store information is up to their policies.  Edmond Schools did not comment about where scanned information goes.

Parents said any extra precaution is worth it.

"I don't think this invades privacy at all. As a parent I want to know who's in there and if you have something to hide, some you shouldn't be around kids, then there really shouldn't be any amount of invasion of privacy," Ann Forrester said.

In test phases last year,  Edmond Schools said a registered sex offender  was actually caught trying to gain access to a school.

"We knew immediately that this was a useful tool that could have significant value district-wide,"  Jim Rothrock, the district safety coordinator said in a news release.

The new system cost around $200,000 to install.  Funding came from a voter approved bond passed in 2010.Privacy Issue in School Background Check Kiosks?

Posted: Friday, August 17 2012, 10:08 PM CDT