American School of Guatemala upgrades with HID Global

The American School of Guatemala has selected HID Global’s Seos credential technology to upgrade its physical access system. The solution is described as significantly improving campus security and traffic efficiency for students and parents, and enables staff to easily issue and manage access credentials.

The American School of Guatemala is a private K-12 college preparatory school in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The school partnered with local security integrator Grupo RQM and HID to replace its legacy system, which consisted of written documentation and fingerprint logs. The new system includes HID readers installed at pedestrian and vehicle access points and 1,500 Seos smart cards issued to students, parents and staff. In addition to automating and streamlining access to the school’s buildings, the solution has led to a reduction in the average student drop-off time from 40 to 18 minutes.

“We’ve significantly improved the management of vehicle traffic by reducing the time it takes parents to access the parking lot,” said a spokesperson for the Security Office, American School of Guatemala. “We’ve been able to improve evacuation and emergency processes for our students and staff. And, best of all, we have an automated system to manage the entry and exit times of our employees to know where everyone is located on our large campus.”

The school also launched a pilot with HID Mobile Access to allow secure access to the school’s parking lot via mobile IDs stored on smart phones. To gain entry, users drive up and hold their mobile phone to a reader—an important feature since most students travel in bulletproof armoured vehicles that lack the ability to lower windows.

“The American School of Guatemala’s access control system has all the hallmarks of HID’s industry-leading security and authentication solutions,” said Harm Radstaak, Senior Vice President and Head of Physical Access Control Solutions with HID Global. “From flexibility and security to ease-of-use, HID’s unique combination of forward-looking technology and intuitive design helps create a robust solution that fortifies the school’s campuses and elevates the user experience.”

Following the successful deployment, school officials plan to replace its traditional key system with Seos smart cards for additional use cases, such as library and student payment services.

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