Author: Riley Hooper
Occidental’s new identification card system has the capability to track where cardholders use their cards. According to Associate Vice President for Hospitality Services Amy Muñoz and Director of Campus Safety Holly Nieto, the main reason for implementing the new door swipe card system on campus is safety. “It’s well known that colleges and universities go to this system because it is safer and more secure,” Muñoz said.
In terms of security, the system provides the information of the location and time that swipe card locks are accessed. Muñoz said the ID card security system consists of what are called on-line and off-line locks. On-line locks are those that many people have access to during many hours of the day, such as the front doors to Rangeview Hall and Newcomb Hall, the Rangeview gym or the various classrooms, laundry and computer rooms. Access information of on-line locks is readily available for viewing. Off-line locks consist of doors that few people have access to, such as student residence rooms. Access information of these locks can be downloaded as necessary.
In accessing this information, the College must adhere to its Identification Card Privacy Policy Statement, which states, “We collect, retain and use information about individual members of Occidental College’s community only where required by law, regulation or when we reasonably believe it is useful and allowed by law in order to administer our business and to provide services.”
Both Muñoz and Nieto said the need for information must be incident driven. Nieto offered an example of why Campus Safety may require the information: “Say, for example, there is a theft inside the hall and we can narrow down the most likely time the theft occurred,” she said. “We can then access the records as to who was in the area near that time. Perhaps that person saw something that can help.”
According to Nieto, the ID card information system is currently accessible, used and/or maintained by the Campus Dining office (for the purpose of card production, account and transaction access and general identification), Campus Safety (for the purpose of general identification, verification and College-related investigation), Human Resources (for the purpose of employee record administration, employment regulation and general identification), the Dean of Students office (for the purpose of student record administration, verification and general identification), Information Technology Services (for the purpose of database security and maintenance) and the person to whom the information pertains.
In the case that one of these parties has an incident that warrants door access information to be granted, Hospitality Services provides the information. “The card office is a service office,” Muñoz said. “We don’t make the policy, we just provide services for policies already made.”
Muñoz said that since the door swipe card system was implemented in Newcomb in fall 2007, only information from on-line locks has been accessed and only for “trial-and-error”-type situations that pertain to working out kinks in the system. There has yet to be an incident that has demanded off-line lock information pertaining to students.
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