11 ms·

Under digital surveillance: how American schools spy on millions of kids

170 points by morisy 7y ago

grawprog 7y ago
>GoGuardian, a company that monitors students’ internet searches, that a student was doing a Google search for “how to kill myself” late one evening. How is it monitoring searches done at home in the evening?
- fetus8 7y ago
  Mobile Device Managers (MDM) and a proxy. Route the device' s searches back to the school's network and monitor via the proxy. I worked in a school district for a couple years where we did this. Certain keywords in searches would prompt email notifications too.
  - gruez 7y ago
    Imagine if your sibling/classmates decided to "prank" you by searching up certain terms when you're not looking.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      in general, you are responsible for whatever is done with your account/machine, authorized or not. if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. if it's unreasonable to expect a child to clear this bar, then they are not yet responsible enough to be entrusted with their own computing device.
      - lovich 7y ago
        That's not been true for almost every device I can think of other than firearms/explosives. If someone steals your car and crashes it are you responsible? If not why are computers different?
        leetcrew 7y ago
        when a computer is provided to you by an organization, you are usually obligated to take reasonable steps to prevent its misuse and especially to prevent misuse of your credentials. do you really disagree that this is the case?
        lovich 7y ago
        Does reasonable steps imply "prevent all bad actors in all cases"? Are the users expected to store their machines in fort Knox under armed guard? >if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. This is a statement that reads to me like "implementation is left as an exercise for the reader" type proclamation of how easy it is to secure things. Followed up with a snide remark about children not being ready for the machines. Adults are constantly getting their machines compromised so it really seems like you're just applying a greater standard to people with less experience
        leetcrew 7y ago
        > Does reasonable steps imply "prevent all bad actors in all cases"? of course not, that's an incredibly uncharitable reading of "reasonable", not even an intelligence agency would set such an impossible standard. keep in mind this whole thread started with a comment about "what if your brother googles something bad as a prank?" I'm literally just talking about setting a password that isn't "password" and locking the computer when you walk away from it. this will protect you from attacks by the vast majority of schoolchildren. if a child can't prevent their friends from misusing their school account, they really shouldn't have one. I'm not sure why this is considered snide or controversial at all.
        munmaek 7y ago
        Because this argument is tone deaf and ignores that kids are, well, kids. Actual adults have terrible security practices. Are you seriously trying to hold kids, who had no choice in the matter, to the same security standards? They’re kids, and likely won’t even understand the gravity of the situation we’re discussing here. These aren’t grown adults working at a company. They’re kids who had laptops foisted upon them.
      - everlastingfan 7y ago
        Even baby's have a computing device: the brain. When do they get clearance to use their brains?
      - defen 7y ago
        > in general, you are responsible for whatever is done with your account/machine, authorized or not. if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. This makes sense in a corporate or military environment, but is simply not reasonable for home use. You're claiming that one can never allow anyone else to have unsupervised physical access to the machine (regardless of whether it's locked, powered off, etc)
        leetcrew 7y ago
        I should have been more clear. I'm not talking about sophisticated adversaries performing hardware attacks on a middle school student's laptop. I'm talking about the very basic steps necessary to prevent your brother from googling for porn on your school computer. in the vast majority of cases, having a good password and logging out of the computer when you're finished will prevent these kinds of pranks. if the child can't handle this, they are not ready for their own computer.
        gowld 7y ago
        No one asked for their own computer. EdTech companies forced it on the kids by bribing and presuring school admins.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        I'm not criticizing the children. I am criticizing the people who are forcing computers on people who are (according to the responses) not ready to use them in an organizational setting.
    - bitwize 7y ago
      My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. The more I hear about shit like this, the more I think that should be this generation's first computer, too. Something they can't hurt themselves with. Bring back Apple IIs in the classrooms. And the TV/VCR combo on the wheeled cart.
  - markovbot 7y ago
    > Certain keywords in searches would prompt email notifications too. That is so unbelievably disgusting. This kind of abusive invasion of privacy should be a crime.
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      In a perverted sense, this is an opportunity to teach the children a very important lesson: if you're using a machine or network owned and operated by your employer (or, by extension, your school), then you should be scrupulous about only using it for work (or school) business.
      - fetus8 7y ago
        Very firm agree. These devices were school owned, and technically "government" owned property. They were not handed out to the students to use however they pleased. They were to be utilized for digital text books, curriculum, and ancillary education resources that were designed by the teachers and administrators of the district. We locked the devices down so that student's couldn't get to certain kinds of apps, parts of the web, and had to be used with school issued Apple IDs. We (as the school district) were wholly responsible for what the student's did on these school owned devices. It's no different than monitoring what goes on in a school's computer lab, except the iPads are mobile devices.
        AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
        Why should we just give public schools a pass for providing kids with email addresses and other adult technologies that have no real educational value? Giving devices to kids is not saving on educational costs, and it's not making their backpacks any lighter. Books don't require tech support lines, chat bots, or surveillance tech to keep it all humming smoothly. But worse of all, it's totally outside the proper purview of our education systems. Public schools don't implement, monitor, and protect a new mailbox on every student's property just for school-related mail delivery. Why should they be giving kids email addresses and expecting them to use those addresses? School-issued Apple IDs? I cannot be the only one who reads that with extreme disgust and concern.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  The possibility of strike back, massively trolling all the school if students team and decide to search for controversial statements all the time, everybody at the same time, or search "What to do if a teacher try to abuse sexually of me" just for fun, is fabulous. Matherial of legend. If the alarm is triggered at a higher level, the school direction will gasp and remove the program in a hurry for fear of being signaled as a conflictive place with low score. If not the disruption and massive lose of time and calling to annoyed parents would taint or nuke the stupid data collecting bussiness. Obviously being watched all the time will cause distress and strange behaviour in students, something that psychologists will understand perfectly with just an innocent sad look.
  - kart23 7y ago
    This. Kids are smart and the amount of ways to troll these 'ai' and 'smart systems' are endless. Hell, make a script that just searches endlessly controversial topics, and boom all that data is worthless. For every company trying to spy on these kids, theres a student who understands how these systems work and we all know how creative and open-minded younger people are.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  School issued devices. My kids have them.
raxxorrax 7y ago
They will probably receiprocate this amount of distrust at some point in their lives. But go ahead, treat children like criminals. Perhaps some will even do a good old school shooting and you could finally be proud of yourselves that you have seen it coming. It would let the industry flourish like nothing else. "Schools feel massive pressure to demonstrate that they’re doing something to keep kids safe" - No kidding...
- lucb1e 7y ago
  This sounds more cynical than constructive to me.
red-indian 7y ago
A few years ago I found out my nephew's Kindergarten had implemented fingerprint scanners for all students. They get to scan their fingerprint when checking in or out of lunch, going to the bathroom, arriving and leaving school. Promoted as a safety feature to ensure they knew where the kids were and that they were ok. I was asked to go in with my brother and talk to them about it. They said it was all ok because that the actual fingerprints aren't stored on the system, only information derived from the fingerprints, the system wasn't costing them anything because some Edu-Tech company was paying for it as a test, no other persons had complained about the tech, not one, we were the first, and it's kind of weird that we are opposed to children's safety. We asked that my nephew not participate in the trial and they agreed, though he reported after that he was often forced to be scanned anyway. A couple years later I asked another parent about the fingerprint scanners and they didn't know what I was talking about, so either they were removed, or parents are simply not reading the notices they are sent home and often even asked to sign.
- ASalazarMX 7y ago
  > They said it was all ok because that the actual fingerprints aren't stored on the system, only information derived from the fingerprints I hate this blatantly flawed reasoning. The data collection is the problem, and it doesn't matter if you store pictures of fingers/faces/irises/ids or just their post-process signatures, it's still data collection.
  - closeparen 7y ago
    Forcing students to generate data and then using it against them isn’t incidental to education, it’s the whole thing. Imagine having the right to edit, delete, and restrict processing of your grades and attendance records. Imagine having the right to an equal shot at college admission while declining to reveal any test scores. It would upend everything about school.
    - DataWorker 7y ago
      You’re downvoted for some reason but you’re correct. Public school is about the power of the state over individuals. Data collection in the form of attendance is the business model. Schools get paid only to the extent they have data on the kids. No data means no public schools. What’s the saying, if something is free then you’re the product. True for Facebook and true for public education.
Konnstann 7y ago
As long as it's limited to school devices and school email/chat, I don't see the problem. Maybe it's just me, but my dad instilled in me early on that anything I do on the internet is there permanently for anyone who cares enough to see. The problem arises from immediate action on the part of the administrators, stemming from zero-tolerance policies that are usually present. Exercising restraint with respect to these tools would lead to better outcomes, in my opinion.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >The problem arises from immediate action on the part of the administrators, stemming from zero-tolerance policies [...] Exercising restraint with respect to these tools would lead to better outcomes, in my opinion. In fairness, there are a lot of laws out there that compel teachers, administrators, and school resource officers to take certain disciplinary actions without regard to their personal feelings on the matter. Zero Tolerance is like the whole Mandatory Minimum thing. A judge may know that it is asinine to sentence this pot dealing kid to 10 years in prison, but the law says that's the minimum, so what can the judge really do? If a school resource officer sees something in the computer logs, or on security video, or wherever, I mean, they are police officers. They may have certain legal obligations that come with having reviewed that evidence. They accessed it, the system knows it was accessed. If something new happens and some other officer ends up reviewing all this information, the fact that the resource officer accessed it and had knowledge of previous offenses will cause trouble for that resource officer. If you want them to show restraint, then you need to change the laws. Teachers, resource officers, etc, don't have the power to do that unilaterally. We would have to give power to ignore things to teachers, administrators, resource officers, coaches, etc.
  - jagged-chisel 7y ago
    > ... so what can the judge really do? Overrule the law, declare it unjust, be the balance to the legislative branch. Yeah, that comes with the possibility of appeals and having another judge change the ruling. But that's how the system should work. You're absolutely right about school employees, though - they're required to act lest their lack of action affect their careers. What needs to change is that the accused student needs the same rights an adult would have: the right to have your day in "court" with the possibility that the decision is 'not guilty.'
ReggieJJJ 7y ago
I can confirm to people that it will only get not only way worse with the surveillance, but under the guise of various forms of tailoring or recommendation system based learning, nefarious actors will use education to condition people to be trained serve the ruling class's interests; regardless of how that may manifest itself at any given time, but will always serve the global ruling class interests. One may foolishly feel like that mass surveillance and conditioning of students to serve ruling class interests may be a good thing because one is foolish enough to think that "i'm on the good team", but reality is that not only can the other side end up swooping in and take over that wonderful system of total control that was set up, but that "good" team one thinks one is part of, may just, as history is replete with examples of, turn out to not actually be all that good at all once all the power has foolishly been handed to them and the gullible useful idiots are no longer needed. Regardless of what your political views are, all of us, regardless of how diametrically opposed our views may be, should be extremely worried about so much power concentrating in the hands of anyone at all, let alone in an outfit as prone to fits of totalitarian tyranny when it does not get what it demands as any government. If Tim Berners-Lee and others are not successful at redistributing the internet and the inept governments does not want to act on the technology corporation tyrants because politicians are too busy salivating over the prospect of total ruling class government control over society, then this is all not going to end well for anyone but the highest echelons of the ruling global aristocracy, that will usher in a new demigod era of humanity.
Mathnerd314 7y ago
It seems like the product was originally an internet filter for pornography etc. but now the companies are competing on features. The main one is the profanity filter but they've started using AI to detect other things like self-harm threats etc. The monitoring seems mostly limited to school laptops and cloud services, so presumably students who don't like it can use their phones if they have them. The companies all have more invasive home products but those report to the parents rather than the school.
SolarNet 7y ago
I mean this is the new (Omniviolence future article from a few days ago) world, they might as well get used to it now...
Ididntdothis 7y ago
It’s pretty much guaranteed that the next generation will grow up with the experience of always watched. Either they get watched by the parents who never let them do anything alone or by technology. Pretty sad in my view but almost inevitable.
- anon9001 7y ago
  As someone raised by helicopter parents that were way ahead of their time, this has been kind of nice for me. It's pretty amusing to me that I used to be the weird one connected to the internet all the time because I pretty much couldn't do anything else, and now that's a shared experience with the entire new generation.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    Heh, shared pain is lessened. Just sad for the other kids though.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  I think you are right about everything but the timescale: the current generation of kids already grew up under constant surveillance...by their parents. When I grew up, during evenings weekends and holidays, kids ran around in the neighborhood with their friends from sunup to sundown. Outside of mealtimes, parents had no idea where we were. A generation later and parents started to time-box everything their kids do, soccer practise, play dates etc. I think this is what makes millenials so comfortable with online surveillance, they see it as benevolent and benign, just like their parents were.
  - hackinthebochs 7y ago
    How did the "free range" generation (before it was unusual enough to even have a name) turn into the overbearing parenting generation?
    - gerbilly 7y ago
bayofpigs 7y ago
It starts with looking for suicide and potential violence but where does it go from here? Sexual activity? Discussing the Quran? Talking about teachers and administrators you don't like? Political views not shared with the district? If a kid gets in trouble do you analyze their entire history and punish them for potentially deviant discussions? Who may search a child's history? What are the repercussions for misusing the information? These programs start with the best intentions but will effect their willingness to communicate openly without first filtering their thoughts through the 'acceptable thoughts' police. Who really knows how this will change a generation of students?
itronitron 7y ago
A while back in Texas my wife and I got a lovely call from one of our children's school counselors because our child's search history the previous evening, on their school issued chrome laptop, had included a search for symptoms of cyanide poisoning which apparently triggered one of the systems used to detect those sorts of things. It turns out that the search was related to a homework assignment for a book they had been reading...
- mLuby 7y ago
  Searches about suicide/murder-related topics could lead to life-saving interventions. One sympathizes with families that didn't or couldn't read the warning signs, and understands why they'd whole-heartedly support monitoring. The other side is that children learn there is an intense adult response to certain topics. That may lead to excessive interest in that topic. Or ever more secretive behavior. Or an inability to challenge authority. On one side of the balance is maybe a student's life. On the other is more students' mental health and autonomy. Life usually wins, but only history can judge whether that's wise.
  - rob_b 7y ago
    Why stop with monitoring the computer? It would be easier to just plant a device to monitor thoughts and every action. Surely, this would only be used for good, and after all, it’s all about safety. The monitoring for safety argument is merely an excuse to eliminate the right to privacy and shift the power to a government entity. Never in the history of mankind has this power ever been abused.
    - Miraste 7y ago
      > It would be easier to just plant a device to monitor thoughts and every action. If this were possible schools would already be doing it.
  - otakucode 7y ago
    Every action has a consequence, and intentions do not matter. What will the consequences of millions of non-life-saving interventions be? We need to keep in mind that we are rolling these technologies out in an entirely blanket fashion, affecting millions of children and adolescents, and we are doing it to prevent exceptionally rare events. In the aftermath of Columbine, schools received lists of "warning signs" derived from nothing objective or accurate. These lists painted targets on the back of dozens of kids. At every single school. Every single year. The lists claimed to assist in identifying potential school shooters. Shooters who were students we know for a fact were present at only a single school, and only one or two every couple years. Why weren't these lists discarded immediately as they were very visibly and provably wrong? The answer to that question is what will support the continued expansion of surveillance in schools relentlessly, even in the face of evidence that it does more harm than good.
jupp0r 7y ago
This will be a perfect way to teach my children about online privacy, how computers and the internet work and how to circumvent surveillance.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  If they realize what is going on. It might end up having the opposite effect: normalizing surveillance from a young age…
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    Thats the more likely scenario IMO.
slics 7y ago
How can the schools just allow any free product to be installed in their systems simply because someone offered them said service or product for free. These (test subjects) are our kids. There should be boundaries set forth by the law not to allow any said system or service to collect any data on kids under a given age. I guess as long as someone offers security - it’s ok to disregard privacy.
- SN76477 7y ago
  Ahh yes, the good old protect the children argument.
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    It is funny though, because both sides use the same "think about the children" argument. One side: surveil them for their safety, and the other: do not surveil them for their safety. I omitted the reasons, just merely wanted to point out how both sides use the same argument. Personally I am in favor of less surveillance of everyone, not just kids.
mensetmanusman 7y ago
An interesting example of why cost of education can have unbounded growth. Parents who sue schools are actually suing society.
- elliekelly 7y ago
  > Parents who sue schools are actually suing society. As a member of society I, for one, appreciate their efforts to protect our collective privacy.
  - mensetmanusman 7y ago
    The school doesn’t pay though, just taxpayers...
- tehlike 7y ago
  Parents who sue schools over their privacy has every right to be. Fines dont always have to be about monetary compensation. You can make it criminal, then things would change. There are other ways other than money to act as detertent. Shutting down private schools could be one.
EETruth 7y ago
No need to thank us kids, we build this shit world for you!
campfireveteran 7y ago
Another story that has not been told is how gifted students in America are inventoried and tracked with IQ tests and other supposed "resource" programs. The GATE program in California is just one example of a dual-purpose, duplicitous program that can be easily exploited for spy and national security research recruiting to the military-industrial complex. More investigative journalism research on this topic is needed to find out exactly who, what, when and where it may be going on.

170 points by morisy 7y ago

>GoGuardian, a company that monitors students’ internet searches, that a student was doing a Google search for “how to kill myself” late one evening. How is it monitoring searches done at home in the evening?

fetus8 7y ago
Mobile Device Managers (MDM) and a proxy. Route the device' s searches back to the school's network and monitor via the proxy. I worked in a school district for a couple years where we did this. Certain keywords in searches would prompt email notifications too.
- gruez 7y ago
  Imagine if your sibling/classmates decided to "prank" you by searching up certain terms when you're not looking.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    in general, you are responsible for whatever is done with your account/machine, authorized or not. if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. if it's unreasonable to expect a child to clear this bar, then they are not yet responsible enough to be entrusted with their own computing device.
    - lovich 7y ago
      That's not been true for almost every device I can think of other than firearms/explosives. If someone steals your car and crashes it are you responsible? If not why are computers different?
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        when a computer is provided to you by an organization, you are usually obligated to take reasonable steps to prevent its misuse and especially to prevent misuse of your credentials. do you really disagree that this is the case?
        lovich 7y ago
        Does reasonable steps imply "prevent all bad actors in all cases"? Are the users expected to store their machines in fort Knox under armed guard? >if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. This is a statement that reads to me like "implementation is left as an exercise for the reader" type proclamation of how easy it is to secure things. Followed up with a snide remark about children not being ready for the machines. Adults are constantly getting their machines compromised so it really seems like you're just applying a greater standard to people with less experience
        leetcrew 7y ago
        > Does reasonable steps imply "prevent all bad actors in all cases"? of course not, that's an incredibly uncharitable reading of "reasonable", not even an intelligence agency would set such an impossible standard. keep in mind this whole thread started with a comment about "what if your brother googles something bad as a prank?" I'm literally just talking about setting a password that isn't "password" and locking the computer when you walk away from it. this will protect you from attacks by the vast majority of schoolchildren. if a child can't prevent their friends from misusing their school account, they really shouldn't have one. I'm not sure why this is considered snide or controversial at all.
        munmaek 7y ago
        Because this argument is tone deaf and ignores that kids are, well, kids. Actual adults have terrible security practices. Are you seriously trying to hold kids, who had no choice in the matter, to the same security standards? They’re kids, and likely won’t even understand the gravity of the situation we’re discussing here. These aren’t grown adults working at a company. They’re kids who had laptops foisted upon them.
    - everlastingfan 7y ago
      Even baby's have a computing device: the brain. When do they get clearance to use their brains?
    - defen 7y ago
      > in general, you are responsible for whatever is done with your account/machine, authorized or not. if you are doing even the bare minimum to secure the computer, you should not be vulnerable to these kind of pranks from siblings/classmates. This makes sense in a corporate or military environment, but is simply not reasonable for home use. You're claiming that one can never allow anyone else to have unsupervised physical access to the machine (regardless of whether it's locked, powered off, etc)
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        I should have been more clear. I'm not talking about sophisticated adversaries performing hardware attacks on a middle school student's laptop. I'm talking about the very basic steps necessary to prevent your brother from googling for porn on your school computer. in the vast majority of cases, having a good password and logging out of the computer when you're finished will prevent these kinds of pranks. if the child can't handle this, they are not ready for their own computer.
        gowld 7y ago
        No one asked for their own computer. EdTech companies forced it on the kids by bribing and presuring school admins.
        leetcrew 7y ago
        I'm not criticizing the children. I am criticizing the people who are forcing computers on people who are (according to the responses) not ready to use them in an organizational setting.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    My first computer was a Commodore VIC-20. The more I hear about shit like this, the more I think that should be this generation's first computer, too. Something they can't hurt themselves with. Bring back Apple IIs in the classrooms. And the TV/VCR combo on the wheeled cart.
- markovbot 7y ago
  > Certain keywords in searches would prompt email notifications too. That is so unbelievably disgusting. This kind of abusive invasion of privacy should be a crime.
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    In a perverted sense, this is an opportunity to teach the children a very important lesson: if you're using a machine or network owned and operated by your employer (or, by extension, your school), then you should be scrupulous about only using it for work (or school) business.
    - fetus8 7y ago
      Very firm agree. These devices were school owned, and technically "government" owned property. They were not handed out to the students to use however they pleased. They were to be utilized for digital text books, curriculum, and ancillary education resources that were designed by the teachers and administrators of the district. We locked the devices down so that student's couldn't get to certain kinds of apps, parts of the web, and had to be used with school issued Apple IDs. We (as the school district) were wholly responsible for what the student's did on these school owned devices. It's no different than monitoring what goes on in a school's computer lab, except the iPads are mobile devices.
      - AndrewUnmuted 7y ago
        Why should we just give public schools a pass for providing kids with email addresses and other adult technologies that have no real educational value? Giving devices to kids is not saving on educational costs, and it's not making their backpacks any lighter. Books don't require tech support lines, chat bots, or surveillance tech to keep it all humming smoothly. But worse of all, it's totally outside the proper purview of our education systems. Public schools don't implement, monitor, and protect a new mailbox on every student's property just for school-related mail delivery. Why should they be giving kids email addresses and expecting them to use those addresses? School-issued Apple IDs? I cannot be the only one who reads that with extreme disgust and concern.
pvaldes 7y ago
The possibility of strike back, massively trolling all the school if students team and decide to search for controversial statements all the time, everybody at the same time, or search "What to do if a teacher try to abuse sexually of me" just for fun, is fabulous. Matherial of legend. If the alarm is triggered at a higher level, the school direction will gasp and remove the program in a hurry for fear of being signaled as a conflictive place with low score. If not the disruption and massive lose of time and calling to annoyed parents would taint or nuke the stupid data collecting bussiness. Obviously being watched all the time will cause distress and strange behaviour in students, something that psychologists will understand perfectly with just an innocent sad look.
- kart23 7y ago
  This. Kids are smart and the amount of ways to troll these 'ai' and 'smart systems' are endless. Hell, make a script that just searches endlessly controversial topics, and boom all that data is worthless. For every company trying to spy on these kids, theres a student who understands how these systems work and we all know how creative and open-minded younger people are.
pnutjam 7y ago
School issued devices. My kids have them.

raxxorrax 7y ago

They will probably receiprocate this amount of distrust at some point in their lives. But go ahead, treat children like criminals. Perhaps some will even do a good old school shooting and you could finally be proud of yourselves that you have seen it coming. It would let the industry flourish like nothing else. "Schools feel massive pressure to demonstrate that they’re doing something to keep kids safe" - No kidding...

lucb1e 7y ago
This sounds more cynical than constructive to me.

red-indian 7y ago

A few years ago I found out my nephew's Kindergarten had implemented fingerprint scanners for all students. They get to scan their fingerprint when checking in or out of lunch, going to the bathroom, arriving and leaving school. Promoted as a safety feature to ensure they knew where the kids were and that they were ok. I was asked to go in with my brother and talk to them about it. They said it was all ok because that the actual fingerprints aren't stored on the system, only information derived from the fingerprints, the system wasn't costing them anything because some Edu-Tech company was paying for it as a test, no other persons had complained about the tech, not one, we were the first, and it's kind of weird that we are opposed to children's safety. We asked that my nephew not participate in the trial and they agreed, though he reported after that he was often forced to be scanned anyway. A couple years later I asked another parent about the fingerprint scanners and they didn't know what I was talking about, so either they were removed, or parents are simply not reading the notices they are sent home and often even asked to sign.

ASalazarMX 7y ago
> They said it was all ok because that the actual fingerprints aren't stored on the system, only information derived from the fingerprints I hate this blatantly flawed reasoning. The data collection is the problem, and it doesn't matter if you store pictures of fingers/faces/irises/ids or just their post-process signatures, it's still data collection.
- closeparen 7y ago
  Forcing students to generate data and then using it against them isn’t incidental to education, it’s the whole thing. Imagine having the right to edit, delete, and restrict processing of your grades and attendance records. Imagine having the right to an equal shot at college admission while declining to reveal any test scores. It would upend everything about school.
  - DataWorker 7y ago
    You’re downvoted for some reason but you’re correct. Public school is about the power of the state over individuals. Data collection in the form of attendance is the business model. Schools get paid only to the extent they have data on the kids. No data means no public schools. What’s the saying, if something is free then you’re the product. True for Facebook and true for public education.

Konnstann 7y ago

As long as it's limited to school devices and school email/chat, I don't see the problem. Maybe it's just me, but my dad instilled in me early on that anything I do on the internet is there permanently for anyone who cares enough to see. The problem arises from immediate action on the part of the administrators, stemming from zero-tolerance policies that are usually present. Exercising restraint with respect to these tools would lead to better outcomes, in my opinion.

bilbo0s 7y ago
>The problem arises from immediate action on the part of the administrators, stemming from zero-tolerance policies [...] Exercising restraint with respect to these tools would lead to better outcomes, in my opinion. In fairness, there are a lot of laws out there that compel teachers, administrators, and school resource officers to take certain disciplinary actions without regard to their personal feelings on the matter. Zero Tolerance is like the whole Mandatory Minimum thing. A judge may know that it is asinine to sentence this pot dealing kid to 10 years in prison, but the law says that's the minimum, so what can the judge really do? If a school resource officer sees something in the computer logs, or on security video, or wherever, I mean, they are police officers. They may have certain legal obligations that come with having reviewed that evidence. They accessed it, the system knows it was accessed. If something new happens and some other officer ends up reviewing all this information, the fact that the resource officer accessed it and had knowledge of previous offenses will cause trouble for that resource officer. If you want them to show restraint, then you need to change the laws. Teachers, resource officers, etc, don't have the power to do that unilaterally. We would have to give power to ignore things to teachers, administrators, resource officers, coaches, etc.
- jagged-chisel 7y ago
  > ... so what can the judge really do? Overrule the law, declare it unjust, be the balance to the legislative branch. Yeah, that comes with the possibility of appeals and having another judge change the ruling. But that's how the system should work. You're absolutely right about school employees, though - they're required to act lest their lack of action affect their careers. What needs to change is that the accused student needs the same rights an adult would have: the right to have your day in "court" with the possibility that the decision is 'not guilty.'

ReggieJJJ 7y ago

I can confirm to people that it will only get not only way worse with the surveillance, but under the guise of various forms of tailoring or recommendation system based learning, nefarious actors will use education to condition people to be trained serve the ruling class's interests; regardless of how that may manifest itself at any given time, but will always serve the global ruling class interests. One may foolishly feel like that mass surveillance and conditioning of students to serve ruling class interests may be a good thing because one is foolish enough to think that "i'm on the good team", but reality is that not only can the other side end up swooping in and take over that wonderful system of total control that was set up, but that "good" team one thinks one is part of, may just, as history is replete with examples of, turn out to not actually be all that good at all once all the power has foolishly been handed to them and the gullible useful idiots are no longer needed. Regardless of what your political views are, all of us, regardless of how diametrically opposed our views may be, should be extremely worried about so much power concentrating in the hands of anyone at all, let alone in an outfit as prone to fits of totalitarian tyranny when it does not get what it demands as any government. If Tim Berners-Lee and others are not successful at redistributing the internet and the inept governments does not want to act on the technology corporation tyrants because politicians are too busy salivating over the prospect of total ruling class government control over society, then this is all not going to end well for anyone but the highest echelons of the ruling global aristocracy, that will usher in a new demigod era of humanity.

Mathnerd314 7y ago

It seems like the product was originally an internet filter for pornography etc. but now the companies are competing on features. The main one is the profanity filter but they've started using AI to detect other things like self-harm threats etc. The monitoring seems mostly limited to school laptops and cloud services, so presumably students who don't like it can use their phones if they have them. The companies all have more invasive home products but those report to the parents rather than the school.

SolarNet 7y ago

I mean this is the new (Omniviolence future article from a few days ago) world, they might as well get used to it now...

Ididntdothis 7y ago

It’s pretty much guaranteed that the next generation will grow up with the experience of always watched. Either they get watched by the parents who never let them do anything alone or by technology. Pretty sad in my view but almost inevitable.

anon9001 7y ago
As someone raised by helicopter parents that were way ahead of their time, this has been kind of nice for me. It's pretty amusing to me that I used to be the weird one connected to the internet all the time because I pretty much couldn't do anything else, and now that's a shared experience with the entire new generation.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Heh, shared pain is lessened. Just sad for the other kids though.
gerbilly 7y ago
I think you are right about everything but the timescale: the current generation of kids already grew up under constant surveillance...by their parents. When I grew up, during evenings weekends and holidays, kids ran around in the neighborhood with their friends from sunup to sundown. Outside of mealtimes, parents had no idea where we were. A generation later and parents started to time-box everything their kids do, soccer practise, play dates etc. I think this is what makes millenials so comfortable with online surveillance, they see it as benevolent and benign, just like their parents were.
- hackinthebochs 7y ago
  How did the "free range" generation (before it was unusual enough to even have a name) turn into the overbearing parenting generation?
  - gerbilly 7y ago

bayofpigs 7y ago

It starts with looking for suicide and potential violence but where does it go from here? Sexual activity? Discussing the Quran? Talking about teachers and administrators you don't like? Political views not shared with the district? If a kid gets in trouble do you analyze their entire history and punish them for potentially deviant discussions? Who may search a child's history? What are the repercussions for misusing the information? These programs start with the best intentions but will effect their willingness to communicate openly without first filtering their thoughts through the 'acceptable thoughts' police. Who really knows how this will change a generation of students?

itronitron 7y ago

A while back in Texas my wife and I got a lovely call from one of our children's school counselors because our child's search history the previous evening, on their school issued chrome laptop, had included a search for symptoms of cyanide poisoning which apparently triggered one of the systems used to detect those sorts of things. It turns out that the search was related to a homework assignment for a book they had been reading...

mLuby 7y ago
Searches about suicide/murder-related topics could lead to life-saving interventions. One sympathizes with families that didn't or couldn't read the warning signs, and understands why they'd whole-heartedly support monitoring. The other side is that children learn there is an intense adult response to certain topics. That may lead to excessive interest in that topic. Or ever more secretive behavior. Or an inability to challenge authority. On one side of the balance is maybe a student's life. On the other is more students' mental health and autonomy. Life usually wins, but only history can judge whether that's wise.
- rob_b 7y ago
  Why stop with monitoring the computer? It would be easier to just plant a device to monitor thoughts and every action. Surely, this would only be used for good, and after all, it’s all about safety. The monitoring for safety argument is merely an excuse to eliminate the right to privacy and shift the power to a government entity. Never in the history of mankind has this power ever been abused.
  - Miraste 7y ago
    > It would be easier to just plant a device to monitor thoughts and every action. If this were possible schools would already be doing it.
- otakucode 7y ago
  Every action has a consequence, and intentions do not matter. What will the consequences of millions of non-life-saving interventions be? We need to keep in mind that we are rolling these technologies out in an entirely blanket fashion, affecting millions of children and adolescents, and we are doing it to prevent exceptionally rare events. In the aftermath of Columbine, schools received lists of "warning signs" derived from nothing objective or accurate. These lists painted targets on the back of dozens of kids. At every single school. Every single year. The lists claimed to assist in identifying potential school shooters. Shooters who were students we know for a fact were present at only a single school, and only one or two every couple years. Why weren't these lists discarded immediately as they were very visibly and provably wrong? The answer to that question is what will support the continued expansion of surveillance in schools relentlessly, even in the face of evidence that it does more harm than good.

jupp0r 7y ago

This will be a perfect way to teach my children about online privacy, how computers and the internet work and how to circumvent surveillance.

saagarjha 7y ago
If they realize what is going on. It might end up having the opposite effect: normalizing surveillance from a young age…
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  Thats the more likely scenario IMO.

slics 7y ago

How can the schools just allow any free product to be installed in their systems simply because someone offered them said service or product for free. These (test subjects) are our kids. There should be boundaries set forth by the law not to allow any said system or service to collect any data on kids under a given age. I guess as long as someone offers security - it’s ok to disregard privacy.

SN76477 7y ago
Ahh yes, the good old protect the children argument.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  It is funny though, because both sides use the same "think about the children" argument. One side: surveil them for their safety, and the other: do not surveil them for their safety. I omitted the reasons, just merely wanted to point out how both sides use the same argument. Personally I am in favor of less surveillance of everyone, not just kids.

mensetmanusman 7y ago

An interesting example of why cost of education can have unbounded growth. Parents who sue schools are actually suing society.

elliekelly 7y ago
> Parents who sue schools are actually suing society. As a member of society I, for one, appreciate their efforts to protect our collective privacy.
- mensetmanusman 7y ago
  The school doesn’t pay though, just taxpayers...
tehlike 7y ago
Parents who sue schools over their privacy has every right to be. Fines dont always have to be about monetary compensation. You can make it criminal, then things would change. There are other ways other than money to act as detertent. Shutting down private schools could be one.

EETruth 7y ago

No need to thank us kids, we build this shit world for you!

campfireveteran 7y ago

Another story that has not been told is how gifted students in America are inventoried and tracked with IQ tests and other supposed "resource" programs. The GATE program in California is just one example of a dual-purpose, duplicitous program that can be easily exploited for spy and national security research recruiting to the military-industrial complex. More investigative journalism research on this topic is needed to find out exactly who, what, when and where it may be going on.