Missouri school district deploys Panasonic facial recognition for security and access control

The West Platte School District in Weston, Missouri has installed 95 cameras equipped with biometric facial recognition in an effort to prioritize the safety of staff teachers, and the roughly 700 students across district’s schools, News-Press Now reports.

The district has installed Panasonic i-PRO EXTREME surveillance video cameras, many of them with FacePRO software, at a cost of just over $200,000, according to the School District’s Director of Technology Richard Fletcher. The camera network is integrated with a MonitorCast video management and access control system to track individuals’ movements in and out of schools. The system also checks individuals against a database supplied by law enforcement, and can trigger an automatic lockdown.

A mobile phone application provides Fletcher and local police with access to camera feeds and unlocks specific doors. The system, which also includes other access control software and hardware, was integrated and deployed by TriCorps Security Co.

FacePRO was launched by Panasonic at ISC West a year ago, and the company’s facial recognition technology was recently deployed for a pilot at a next-generation convenience store in Japan.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  children  |  facial recognition  |  Panasonic  |  privacy  |  school security  |  schools