MESA, AZ — A Valley father is hoping to protect students across the country. He developed a system called Visitor Aware. It's for schools to know exactly who's on their campus by a simple check-in system.
Visitor Aware takes a photo of the person using an iPad or computer. It also takes a picture of the front and back of their license. The program then compares the two photos to make sure they're the same person. While it's doing that, it's making sure the visitor isn't on the sexual predator list or any other parameters the school sets in place - all in under 30 seconds. If the visitor gets the all clear, a visitor badge is printed with a picture of the person.
"In an emergency situation, if something were to happen, you'd be able to tell in 100% accuracy who's in your facility, who's on campus, who you have to make sure is out of the facility and who's safe," said Joanna Haugland with Visitor Aware.
"Right now, it would be complicated if not impossible depending on how somebody signed in." Haugland is referring to a simple sign-in piece of paper a lot of schools use when checking in a visitor.
The system costs $60 a month per school to run. The school would need to already have an iPad or computer and a printer to run the system.
