Secret scourge: Private school students under hi-tech surveillance

A Brisbane private school has ramped up its security, adding hi-tech surveillance to its toilets and changerooms to stop a scourge escalating among teens.

“Innovative” vape detectors have been installed in toilets and change rooms at a Brisbane private school in a beefed up security system to address the public health crisis.

Independent Catholic school Padua College at Kedron has installed an Alpha Global security system, with vape detectors one part of its new hi-tech arsenal.

Padua College declined to comment on the vape detectors, however, a post on Alpha Global’s website confirmed the sensors had been installed within private settings like bathrooms and change rooms at the college.

The website showed Padua College was used as a case study which included a now-deleted video of a staff member who described it as an “innovative form of artificial-style analytics”.

“It strengthens our capacity to monitor across other campuses as well as vape detector and environment sensors,” the staff member explained in the post.

According to Alpha Global, the sensors were deployed to “improve safety and eliminate problematic practices across the campus”.

Vape detectors have been installed in toilets and change rooms at Padua College in Brisbane’s north.

The college did not respond to several questions regarding the vape detectors, their cost and whether the school has experienced issues with vaping.

Padua joins a growing list of Queensland schools to take proactive measures to address vaping, including Immanuel Lutheran College on the Sunshine Coast which installed similar detectors in its toilet blocks.

Immanuel principal Colin Minke told The Courier-Mail earlier this year the vape detectors assisted the college in identifying students experimenting with e-cigarettes.

“While there have been limited cases where these measures have been used, it acts as an effective deterrent for students,” Mr Minke said.

Gold Coast Catholic school Aquinas College reportedly was forced to temporarily lock toilets to restrict vaping while Calamvale Community College principal Lisa Starmer said the school had suspended students as young as Year 4 for “bringing and sharing vapes”.

“Carrying the responsibility for your students’ health while they are at school, we have reacted very strongly to ‘vapes’ being brought to school and then shared with others,” she wrote in a college newsletter in August 2021.

Other Queensland schools have held emergency parent information sessions on vaping to increase awareness.

A Department of Education spokesman said it was unaware of any vape detectors installed in any Queensland state schools.

Similar state-of-the-art “halo detectors” which can catch vapour, marijuana and cigarette smoke have also been installed at Western Sydney’s Plumpton High School as part of a “holistic” approach to vaping.

Plumpton principal Tim Lloyd said it would help future proof children’s health and wellbeing.

E-cigarettes have been labelled a “public health crisis” in a major three-year analysis, which found that vaping was increasing the risk of addiction, poisoning, seizures, burns and lung injury.

The review, undertaken by experts from the Australian National University on behalf of the federal government, also reported early signs of adverse impacts on vapers’ cardiovascular health including blood pressure, heart rate and lung functioning caused by e-cigarette use.