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Private School Selects Recognition Systems’ Biometric HandReader

CAMPBELL, Calif.-A private Wisconsin school has decided to use biometric hand reader manufactured by Recognition Systems, the biometric component of Ingersoll-Rand’s Security & Safety Group’s Electronic Access Control Division. The Academy of Appleton, Wis., a private pre-, primary and secondary school with a parent to teacher ratio of three to one, is using hand geometry technology to secure its key access point. Parents and the entire faculty must use Recognition Systems’ HandReader to enter the school. School officials, who consider security a top concern, did not want to bother with keys or cards or take the chance of a code getting compromised.

HandReaders automatically take a three-dimensional reading of the size and shape of a hand and verify the user’s identity in less than one second. “We chose hand geometry because it maximized security while still making it easy to get in the school,” said Jody Marriot Bar-Lev, co-president and co-founder of The Academy. At The Academy, children do not wait outside to be picked up. Parents must come inside the school and use the biometric reader to enter it. The HandKey unit is also programmed to let teachers in at special times, including evenings and weekends.