Gary Corsale, Regional Sales Manager at DoorBird (an ASSA ABLOY Company) discusses the use of audio and video communication to secure schools.

What has your journey in security been like?

I’ve been with DoorBird for over two years now, but I joined the security industry over 35 years ago.

Some of my previous roles have been with major manufacturing companies like General Electric and NAPCO.

I bring a range of knowledge across areas such as access control, video surveillance and network connectivity.

That’s why DoorBird was a perfect fit for me, given my experience that I can bring to its portfolio.

How can we protect and secure schools and campuses?

Of course, there’s a very heightened state of affairs at the moment, particularly in regard to the question of secure schools.

What we’re finding is that combining video surveillance and access control, and all the various modalities in between including locking hardware, is a key piece of infrastructure when protecting campuses.

However, having a communication component on top of this bridges the gap between physical hardware devices, which are ultra critical, and electronic surveillance devices.

The better the communication in school settings, the better the security.

Traditionally, this has been lacking; let’s say that someone doesn’t have the opportunity to secure a door, because they can’t get back in the building very easily.

They’ll start propping the door open, but by adding an access control component to that portal, they can now safely close and lock the door before returning to get back in.

Communication allows multiple people to be notified when there is someone present at an entryway or exit and have a visual understanding of who’s there.

For other issues such as tailgating, where someone is trying to double up and use someone else’s credentials at a gate entryway, cameras can help to detect and eliminate this.

Why are communication systems so significant for schools? How can they help on a day-to-day basis?

In a school scenario, if the front door is locked at all times, and these days this should happen, then the students and staff will be protected.

But what if I’m a parent and need to pick up my child?

If there is a vestibule that is open where I can speak to a receptionist, then the building security has already been compromised.

By having a communication element on the outside of the perimeter, I can ring an intercom and speak with the receptionist while they confirm my identity, helping to create a more secure school.

That way, I’m secured on the outside of the building before being physically allowed any closer.

We also don’t want to inundate the school’s administrative staff with deliveries and other ancillary aspects, so we can include a unit on the outside of the building that has an administration button and another one for deliveries.

This can then go to the correct department directly, making sure that the administrative employees have more time to focus on what matters within their department.

Communications can also be used on the individual classroom level.

To be more proactive rather than reactive with security measures, we can keep classroom doors locked at all times.

Let’s then say that a student needs to leave the classroom to go to the restroom.

That door is locked behind them and when they want to come back in, they have to press the intercom button so that the teacher can quickly see they’re a safe person to allow in.

The teacher can then unlock the door from the inside.

Do you have any recent success stories?

We’re working right now on a project with a major university in South Carolina.

They have a situation where they have lots of outbuildings which can be used for multipurpose scenarios.

They needed a way to quickly manage them – we used DoorBird’s native cloud connectivity, which allows us to quickly deploy different PINs and credentials to allow different groups of people to access the spaces as needed.  

For example, one month they might need to rent out an outbuilding to one organization but the next month it goes to someone else.

The control of this building can be easily switched because it is a cloud-based system.

As DoorBird is an open protocol product, our application programming interface (API) allows it to communicate with multiple devices and interface with other organization’s hardware and software.

We can take visual or digital data between cloud server to cloud server, authenticate images or sounds and then create scenarios that would not normally exist.

A lot of people like to work with us because our data is very secure.

You may see headlines about other solutions where data has been accessed, but not with DoorBird.

We are very proud of the fact that we have an excellent reputation in the market when it comes to our data security.

This helps us to grow in the school and campus security market, because parents do not want images or videos of their children being accessed by unauthorized individuals or even leaked.

What trends might we see to secure schools and campuses in the future?

We will see more efficient communication.

When something happens, the necessary people need to be contacted with the correct information at the right time. That’s the key to effective security.

If something’s happening on one side of a large campus, by the time the right person gets that information, critical minutes have been lost and that’s where we bridge the gap in those applications.

For example, on a campus there may be a tower that says “emergency” on it.

When that button is pressed, it’s possible to have audible communication with someone on the other end but then video can be added as another layer.

So now the campus police officer is not only having the conversation but can visually confirm the surroundings of the tower and check the threat level.

In the future, we might see these towers being combined with AI to build in threat detection based upon video input.

If this happens, there’s then a whole new layer of protection around the campus that can alert security should anything happen or if someone is acting suspiciously.

That allows us to be more proactive. 

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

One of the key features to look out for when choosing a communication product to secure schools or campuses is flexibility.

Another important aspect is aesthetics – many schools and campuses want something that fits within their design and we can help by providing various finishes and colors that fit with what the school wants.

This article was originally published in the April edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.