Hall pass software has, in 2026, become a flashpoint in the broader debate about K-12 student surveillance. Here are the design choices we made on the opposite side of that debate — and what we deliberately don't build.
By Peter Mant · middle school math teacher, NJ · founder of Hallwise
Most digital hall pass software started as a replacement for paper. Several of the larger vendors have since bundled it into broader “school safety platforms”: hall passes combined with cameras, weapons screening, behavior tracking, and AI-flagged students. Per-student pricing rewards a vendor for collecting more data on more kids. Parents and students have started to push back — 2026 has seen lawsuits, student petitions, and several halted district rollouts.
Hallwise was built differently. We are a hall pass. We log when a student leaves, where they're going, and when they come back. That's the data model. No camera or weapon-detector integrations. No AI risk scores. No bundling with anything that lets pass records leave our system.
This page is the plain-language version of what most vendors bury in a 30-page DPA. Skim it, send it to your district's data privacy officer, and ask the equivalent vendor for the same level of clarity.
Four design choices that are easier to make at the start than to retrofit later.
Pass records belong to the school that generated them. We don't license them to data brokers, share them with insurers or research firms, or use them to train AI models. Our only revenue is the school subscription fee.
Hallwise has no ML models that label individual students as “high risk,” “likely to vape,” or anything similar. The frequent-flyer report sums passes per student over a date range — humans decide what to do with that information. The system never automatically routes a student to discipline.
Hallwise is a hall pass. We don't sell cameras, weapon-detection, behavior management, parent comms, attendance, ID badges, or threat assessment. We don't integrate the hall pass with any of those if you're using them elsewhere. Schools that need broader safety tools run them separately; the data doesn't mingle through us.
Hallwise knows whether a student is “out” or “back” and which destination they chose. It does not track where the student actually is during a pass — no GPS, no Bluetooth beacons, no integration with building-access systems that would report room-level location.
Honesty about what is in the database, with no qualifiers.
Privacy positioning is cheap to talk about. These are the design calls that make it real.
When a student picks a destination, the kiosk shows their own week — “this week: 6 passes · 31 min out.” Not a quota, not a warning. The same data their teacher sees. Most students adjust on their own.
New schools start with every restriction off — no cooldown, no daily limit, no per-destination caps. Admins enable them when (and if) they decide they're needed. Across 13 deployed schools, the typical student behaved within the bounds a thoughtful teacher would have set, without anyone setting them.
The dashboard shows pass counts and patterns. It does not label students as “at risk,” “likely to vape,” or anything in that family. Pair restrictions exist for documented cases, but they're admin-managed based on real observations — never algorithm-suggested.
Hall pass software in 2026 has split into two design approaches.
Surveillance-stack defaults
Hallwise
Some schools want a unified safety platform, and bundled-suite vendors are a fair fit. For everyone else — most small and mid-sized K-12 schools, where the bundle isn't worth the per-student price — a focused hall pass is the cleaner choice.
No. Hallwise has no commercial use of student data — not to advertisers, not to insurers, not to research firms, not to AI companies. Pass records belong to the school that generated them. The only way student data leaves our systems is when a school exports it (Excel download) or asks us to delete it.
Yes. Hallwise operates as a "school official" data processor under FERPA — the same legal relationship a school has with its student information system. We sign Data Privacy Agreements with school districts on request — email hello@hallwise.com and we will return a countersigned copy within one business day, whether you use the SDPC NDPA, your district's own template, or want us to send a pre-filled NDPA. Hallwise is also COPPA-compliant for users under 13: student records are only created when a teacher or admin from the school adds them via Google Classroom sync; no student creates their own account.
No. There are no machine learning models, "frequent flyer" prediction algorithms, behavior risk scores, or AI-flagged students anywhere in Hallwise. The frequent-flyer report in the admin dashboard is a simple count — passes per student over a date range, sorted descending. A teacher or admin can sort the data; the system never labels a specific student as "at risk" or routes them to discipline automatically.
No. Hallwise is a hall pass — not a "school safety suite." We do not connect to camera feeds, vape detectors, weapon-screening systems, threat-assessment platforms, or behavior-management products. The decision is deliberate: bundling a hall pass into a broader surveillance stack changes what the product is. Many of our customers run other safety tools alongside Hallwise; the two systems do not exchange data through us.
Each pass record stores: the student's name (synced from Google Classroom; we don't create student accounts manually), the destination they chose (e.g. "Bathroom"), the time the pass started, the time it ended, and which teacher issued and returned the pass. Aggregated counts are used for the weekly digest email and the dashboard. That's all. No location tracking during the pass, no audio, no video, no device data.
Hallwise itself does not have a parent portal — student records are accessible to school staff only. A parent who wants to see their child's pass history should request it from the school, who can export the data from the admin dashboard. This matches how schools handle most student records under FERPA: parents request access through the school, not through the vendor.
Schools can export everything (pass history, rosters, settings) as Excel files from the admin dashboard at any time. On cancellation, schools can request a full data deletion by emailing hello@hallwise.com — we will delete all pass records, user accounts, and audit logs for that school within 30 days and confirm in writing. We do not retain data past cancellation as a default.
Hallwise uses three third-party services to operate: Supabase (database hosting), Vercel (web hosting), and Resend (transactional email — weekly digests). Each is a data processor under our contracts; none of them have rights to use student data for their own purposes. We do not share data with marketing companies, analytics platforms beyond Google Analytics (which sees only anonymized site-usage data, not student records), AI training datasets, or any research partners.
We can't speak for other vendors — each one's policies are their own. But if you're comparing, the questions worth asking are: (1) Is hall pass data shared with or co-mingled with any other product in the vendor's catalog (cameras, behavior tracking, weapon detection, parent comms)? (2) Are there AI or ML models that score individual students? (3) Can the school export and delete all its data on cancellation, in writing? (4) What's the underlying business model — does the vendor monetize anything beyond the subscription fee? Hallwise answers no, no, yes, and "subscription only" to those four.
Hallwise is built around human discretion. Pass restrictions (cooldown, daily limit, pair restrictions) are admin-managed and off by default for new schools — an admin enables them when they decide it's needed. Every restriction includes an exemption list and per-pass override. Students with documented accommodations are added to the exemption list and bypass restrictions entirely. The system never blocks a student automatically without a path for human override.
Have a question not covered here? Email hello@hallwise.com — we respond to every privacy / DPA inquiry within one business day.
$599/year flat for the entire school. 60-day free trial, no credit card. Free Solo plan for individual teachers. Setup takes five minutes — Google Classroom syncs your roster automatically.
Built by a working teacher · No setup fee · No per-student pricing