Identification cards have served college campuses well
over the years, allowing students to do everything from gaining access to
buildings to eating in the dining halls to charging purchases in the campus
store. Soon, however, advances in technology may make the ID card obsolete.
With fingerprint readers and iris cameras already basic
components in smartphones, some colleges and universities are working on ways
to put those features to work. Campus stores are already experimenting with
low-energy Bluetooth beacons to offer shoppers discounts as they enter. Advances
in hand-geometry readers, which identify the shape of a user’s hand, are also
on the horizon.
The University of Georgia, Athens, will allow students to
enroll in a system that uses iris authentication to enter dining halls and the
student center. Georgia Southern University in Statesboro has used iris cameras
to control entry into dining halls since 2013 and has found data gained from
the technology useful.
“If we have a freshman who’s living on campus and
required to have a dining plan, and suddenly we see the student’s not coming in
anymore—what’s going on?” said Richard Wynn, director of Eagle Card services at
Georgia Southern. “We can actually alert housing staff and let them know we
haven’t seen that student in a while and they can actually go check on them.”
Iris authentication could also be used for entry into residence
halls, the library, and sports venues, providing the institution an idea of how
individual students spend their day. That sort of information would be valuable
in university marketing efforts, yet it also brings up privacy concerns.
“These aren’t scanners,” Bryan Varin, executive
director of UGA dining services, said of hand-geometry readers and iris cameras.
“Both of them are simply taking a picture and ending up with a mathematical
equation that grants you entry.”
