In December 2007, a man showed up at an elementary school in the northern suburbs of Charlotte, N.C., to have lunch with a student. Upon entering the school, he encountered a digital kiosk and followed the sign-in instructions by entering his name and date of birth. As he waited for his visitor’s badge to print, the kiosk notified school officials that the man’s information matched the identity of a registered sex offender. The police were called, and a few minutes later, the man was quietly escorted from the school. He was a registered sex offender.
The kiosk that alerted school officials of the sex offender was manufactured by LobbyGuard Solutions LLC, a Raleigh, N.C.-based provider of visitor-management security systems. Founded in 1999, LobbyGuard was one of the first players in the visitor-management space, and over the years has evolved from a pieced-together PC/touchscreen configuration to the all-in-one kiosk model it unveiled in March 2006 and continues to use today
LobbyGuard updates its database each month, based on public information provided by each state, which usually includes more than 500,000 sex offenders.
The Chesapeake, Va., school district is piloting LobbyGuard at three of its schools, in search of a better way to process visitors and alert school officials when sex offenders enter the premises.
Brian Allen, of Cii Associates Inc., a LobbyGuard distributor, has worked with school officials to establish the pilot program.
LobbyGuard was installed in April 2008, and so far the reception has been very positive.
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