A host of female students at China’s Beijing Normal University are now able to access their residence hall by simply showing their face after the university installed facial recognition access readers at the dorm’s perimeter doors.

California’s Vista Unified School District has expanded the use of a biometrics system that sees students scan their fingerprints to purchase food at the cafeteria lunch line. The biometrics program has reportedly led to expedited lines and introduced new layers of security for students’ accounts from theft or accidental misuse.

Whether it’s misinformation, concerns over personal data or a general reticence over the implementation of new technology, biometric solutions on campus are still not pervasive. Still, successful university deployments of biometrics for access control, privilege control and authentication have already demonstrated the power of the technology. With this in mind we spoke to ColorID’s biometric specialist, Tim Ortscheid, about campus deployments and discussed security vs. convenience.

Iowa’s Wartburg College spent the month of November trialling biometric access at its dining facility, with a view to test the systems efficiency and potentially implement the system in the near future.

Physical security is a primary concern for and college campus either at home or abroad, but in countries like South Africa where physical security threats take a variety of forms, access control is paramount. Security is a top priority on campus where in recent months protests, violence, arson and other concerns have posed risks to student safety and campus property. One possible solution, according to Morpho, is biometric access and authentication.

The University of Maryland has implemented a new biometric access system at campus dining halls, installing nine of SAFRAN’s MorphoWave biometric terminals. A touchless solution, the MorphoWave biometric terminal reads all four fingerprints of the hand as it is passed through the read area. MorphoWave is the first biometric access solution to capture and match four fingerprints with a single hand movement, and enables access in a completely contactless manner.

The University Grants Commission — a government body designed to maintain higher education standards in India — mandated a shift from the pen and paper attendance tracking to a more efficient and effective method. Two years on, area colleges are issuing RFID credentials and experimenting with biometric systems to better log attendance and deter students from skipping class.