The University of Glasgow have authorised a project creating a ‘smart card’ system with intent to replace the current student identity matriculation cards. This new system is predicted to be able to garner and record an unprecedented level of information on Glasgow University students.
The university released a report explaining that the new system will work as a ‘unified physical access control system’. The report goes on to state that it would manage ‘access to buildings across the University estate’ including both the library and sports facilities, amongst other services. The university claims this new system is guided by the intent of making campus more accessible.
Upon this new system being fully rolled-out, a timetable will be established for replacing each student and staff member’s card with the new technology. These new cards will also be capable of ‘unlocking additional card applications’. Professor Frank Coton, Vice-Principal of Academic and Educational Innovation, told The Glasgow Guardian that this new system would be capable of ‘integration with security systems’, as well as creating ‘flexibility of building opening hours and [granting] selective access to buildings at different times of the day’ with the intention of ‘improving security and enhancing the general level of service that we provide to both staff and students.’
The new smart card system will be capable of allowing students to have access to buildings which would otherwise have been shut, whilst also possibly logging this information for security purposes.
In regards to the time frame of the smart card project, Professor Coton stated: ‘We expect the project contract to be awarded in May this year and then the work would begin to ramp up from that point onward.’
