UND Security Goes High-Tech

UND is taking making campus security high-tech. They've eliminated keys on may buildings and access points on campus and have a completley electronic system that can be controlled from a lap top.

With a simple swipe and single beep, you can access many doors on UND's campus 24-hours a day. A new electronic security system is wiring its way across campus that will eliminate keys and worries for good.

Margaret Myers: "I like it very much its easy to use we know the door is locked when their scheduled to and know their open."

Jill Novotny: "It's a great idea we used to have keys and if we lost them we'd be responsible to pay to put new lock cores in the building."

Employees who need access to a building after hours are given these key fobs. How it works is pretty simple.

The electronic security system can lock any door on campus remotely using a computer. So during an emergency they'd be able to lock down a building without having to physically go to each door and lock it by hand.

Duane Czapiewski: "We have 83 access points involving a few hundred people who have access right now"

Each building that's wired for the security system is on a schedule which locks all the doors at night and opens them in the morning automatically.

Duane Czapiewski: "It does provide a rapid closure time; right now security might have to lock 6-7 buildings at once which is physically impossible."

Eventually all buildings doors will open electronically. The next item on the high-tech security list is cameras.

They have mostly been placed in research buildings and administrative buildings initially but some classroom buildings and the new university housing complex is using them as well.

Tags: steve bodakowski, news, und