Two years ago, a noncustodial Michigan parent snatched a child from school.

Now, would-be visitors trying to gain entrance into at least one Michigan school find it nearly as difficult as getting into a courthouse.

School visitors are “managed” by a dedicated computerized terminal running “visitor management” software.

Visitors must be processed through the terminal, which scans the guests’ driver’s licenses and compares the identities of the licensees against a national database of sex offenders. If the visitors are not in the sex offender database, the terminal prints visitor passes with photo identifications.

That’s the easy part.

The “intelligent” software terminal also maintains child custody and timesharing information, to “manage” child pickup disputes between parents (and potentially others) as well. That sounds as though it must require interpreting as well as enforcing parental timesharing legal rights.

All done by software … in the name of school safety … and if the terminal gets it wrong? ….

Read more about this brave new world in this Muskegon [MI] Chronicle article: Securing our schools.