New Technology Aims to Keep Child Predators Out of Schools

Sloane Heffernan
WRAL-TV

Raleigh — Student safety is top concern at Joyner Elementary School in Raleigh.

"We can't guarantee it when they leave here, but we can certainly guarantee when they are here," said assistant principal Sabra Green.

That’s the reason that Joyner Elementary and other schools are investing in new state-of-the-art technology. Now, each visitor must sign in at a kiosk once they enter the school.

"It guarantees that we know who is coming through that front door," said Green.

The system takes a picture of every visitor. Then, each person is required to scan their driver’s license. The information is instantly compared to a national database of more than 500,000 registered sex offenders.

“We are constantly, 24 hours a day, running our software to keep our databases up to date," said Kevin Allen, president of the Raleigh-based company LobbyGuard, who are making the kiosks.

Allen said when a registered sex offender is entered into the system, the computer prints out a void sticker instead of a visitor badge. The administration is immediately notified with an e-mail or text message.

The system also allows the administrator to verify the person is a registered offender by comparing the visitor's picture with the picture of the sex offender.

All of the information the system provides can be found free of charge online, but LobbyGuard officials said the information can't be found on demand. There is a national database available here , but you must enter specific zip codes.

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