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> “If authority figures for youth say constant surveillance is OK, what happens when a romantic partner wants access to every message on their phone? Or an empl

> “If authority figures for youth say constant surveillance is OK, what happens when a romantic partner wants access to every message on their phone? Or an employer wants your social media password? Invasive monitoring isn’t acceptable, no matter who tries to do it, and personal privacy matters.” I think that it is even worse than that. In a decade or two, we are going to learn the many cases of sexual abuse that this surveillance facilitated. To give such an absolute power to adults over other people's children never ends well. And the kind of person that wants to spy on kids and teenagers 24/7 is the kind of person that should not be allowed to work with them.

commoner 5y ago
Certainly already happening: > Over the next 15 days, the school district captured at least 210 webcam photos and 218 screenshots. They included photos inside his home of Robbins sleeping and of him partially undressed, as well as photos of his father. The district also snapped images of Robbins' instant messages and video chats with his friends, and sent them to its servers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School... > "Many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress," the lawsuit charges. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20100218_Lower_Merion_School_District_sued_for_cyber_spying_on_students.html https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20100218_Lower...
- kurthr 5y ago
  Wow... they are one (or two) horny kid(s) away from a child porn charge and the confiscation of their servers.
  - emptyparadise 5y ago
    They'll just get the kids arrested for child porn instead.
    - loup-vaillant 5y ago
      Some may try, but that won't fly if the kids didn't produce the images (not their cameras), didn't store them (not their servers), and didn't share or publish them (not their network. A more plausible scenario is trying to sue the kids for indecency or similar.
- ddingus 5y ago
  Wow! That is full batshit crazy.
zelphirkalt 5y ago
I agree with your point, however, I think the majority of teachers and even lecturers are simply uneducated, when it comes to avoiding surveillance of their students. When presented these issues, most shrugg it off, because they fear having to actually do something about it themselves. They carelessly throw away privacy of their students by suggesting to use the usual suspects for voice and video chat. In my opinion in this age of technology, getting educated about the issues here should be a mandatory aspect of the training of all people, who want to be teachers. Then there is this illusion, of setting up something oneself, as an institution, being super difficult. Schools could easily rent a decent server, costing something like 40-80 dollar/euro per month and protect their students. They do have an computer/IT/informatics teacher, who studied computer stuff, hopefully. If not, they could hire someone to do it, the country / state could finance it, or they could even get a talented student to set it up for them. The setup itself is really not that difficult and takes an afternoon or without much prior knowledge perhaps 2 days. And really, if it is a money question, just ask parents to donate and the school will be covered. No unsolvable problem at all. Universities easily have the cash to rent servers and usually have IT people in employment as well, who manage all sorts of stuff. It should be an easy task for them to set up a privacy preserving text, voice and video chat. Then you have the problem, that I experienced myself, when I wanted to make it happen for schools, contacting someone I know at a school: There is bureaucracy in the way, which demands a uniform solution for schools. Which results in using a centralized service provider, because the whole country (!) does not manage to set up the infrastructure for its students. Just imagine that. A whole country, incapable of setting up privacy preserving solutions for students, all the while everyone is whining about bad online teaching during the pandemic. Somehow this makes me doubt their motivation and willingness to solve the problem. Unfortunately most people are not informed about the issues and choose to continue being uninformed that way. They do not want to deal with ethical questions and rather want to throw money at the problem, by purchasing licenses for surveillance products. All it takes is people caring.

commoner 5y ago

Certainly already happening: > Over the next 15 days, the school district captured at least 210 webcam photos and 218 screenshots. They included photos inside his home of Robbins sleeping and of him partially undressed, as well as photos of his father. The district also snapped images of Robbins' instant messages and video chats with his friends, and sent them to its servers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School... > "Many of the images captured and intercepted may consist of images of minors and their parents or friends in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress," the lawsuit charges. https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20100218_Lower_Merion_School_District_sued_for_cyber_spying_on_students.html https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20100218_Lower...

kurthr 5y ago
Wow... they are one (or two) horny kid(s) away from a child porn charge and the confiscation of their servers.
- emptyparadise 5y ago
  They'll just get the kids arrested for child porn instead.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    Some may try, but that won't fly if the kids didn't produce the images (not their cameras), didn't store them (not their servers), and didn't share or publish them (not their network. A more plausible scenario is trying to sue the kids for indecency or similar.
ddingus 5y ago
Wow! That is full batshit crazy.

zelphirkalt 5y ago

I agree with your point, however, I think the majority of teachers and even lecturers are simply uneducated, when it comes to avoiding surveillance of their students. When presented these issues, most shrugg it off, because they fear having to actually do something about it themselves. They carelessly throw away privacy of their students by suggesting to use the usual suspects for voice and video chat. In my opinion in this age of technology, getting educated about the issues here should be a mandatory aspect of the training of all people, who want to be teachers. Then there is this illusion, of setting up something oneself, as an institution, being super difficult. Schools could easily rent a decent server, costing something like 40-80 dollar/euro per month and protect their students. They do have an computer/IT/informatics teacher, who studied computer stuff, hopefully. If not, they could hire someone to do it, the country / state could finance it, or they could even get a talented student to set it up for them. The setup itself is really not that difficult and takes an afternoon or without much prior knowledge perhaps 2 days. And really, if it is a money question, just ask parents to donate and the school will be covered. No unsolvable problem at all. Universities easily have the cash to rent servers and usually have IT people in employment as well, who manage all sorts of stuff. It should be an easy task for them to set up a privacy preserving text, voice and video chat. Then you have the problem, that I experienced myself, when I wanted to make it happen for schools, contacting someone I know at a school: There is bureaucracy in the way, which demands a uniform solution for schools. Which results in using a centralized service provider, because the whole country (!) does not manage to set up the infrastructure for its students. Just imagine that. A whole country, incapable of setting up privacy preserving solutions for students, all the while everyone is whining about bad online teaching during the pandemic. Somehow this makes me doubt their motivation and willingness to solve the problem. Unfortunately most people are not informed about the issues and choose to continue being uninformed that way. They do not want to deal with ethical questions and rather want to throw money at the problem, by purchasing licenses for surveillance products. All it takes is people caring.