Every time a first-year uses a card key to open a door, a central computer records the student's identity, and the time and location of the entry.

The information flashes on a screen in the Harvard University Police Headquarters and is stored in a computer database.

Soon electronic access control will be expanded to the residential houses and the University will have a limited capability of monitoring all undergraduates.

In George Orwell's 1984, the government knew when people came, when they left and where they went. Surveillance gave the government complete control.

Most people would agree that Harvard is not an Orwellian government. The card key system can hardly trace an undergraduate's every move. Still, civil libertarians are raising questions about how the College is intending to use the system records.

Elizabeth S. Nathans, dean of first-year students, says worries about Big Brother are misplaced. Harvard designed the electronic access control to protect students, not to track them down, says Nathans.

"I think you have to avoid a sort of mindset of conspiracy of the University against the students. That's not what we're doing," Nathans says. "I think you have to assume intelligence and good will on the part of people who designed the system as a security system and not a spy system."

But Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 says the Administrative Board may use card key information to corroborate evidence in disciplinary hearings. That has student critics worried.

Nathans and other administrators stress trust. The College only wants to protect students. But rights activists are worried that the administration will abuse this trust and infringe upon the privacy of students.

Each week card keys are used 67,000 times to open the doors to first-year dormitories.

When the card key is fed into the reader, the transaction is relayed to a central computer. If the card number is valid at the time and location of entry, the system opens the door. The records are stored for about a month before new entries are recorded and old ones deleted. The information may be accessed by the College any time before it is deleted.

Police used the card key information early this fall when students in Grays Hall reported what they believed was someone attempting to break into their dorm room.

The police officers investigating the incident called the headquarters and determined that Alex H. Cho '96 of Wigglesworth had last entered the dorm.

After waking up all of Cho's roommates at 4 a.m. by shining a flashlight in their faces, police found Cho sleeping in Grays' first-floor common area, book in hand.

Cho told the officers he had no knowledge of the incident. Cho says the officers were "real casual" and believed him.