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Google Chromebook outlawed in Danish public schools
- kar5pt 4y agoArticle is in Danish. Anyone know why they were banned?
- mbreese 4y agoEarlier discussion: Danish DPA bans Google Workspace for municipalities https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32108164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32108164
- hedgehog 4y agoAccording to the Google translated beginning of the article: "When elementary school students return from vacation, they can no longer use their portable Chromebooks. The Data Protection Authority has banned the use of Workspace - the applications on the Chromebook - because students' data may be disclosed to US authorities. "The specific decision applies to Helsingør Municipality. But the Danish Data Protection Agency makes it clear that all the other municipalities that use Google's learning platform - that is about half of the country's 98 municipalities - should stop using Chromebooks in teaching. "The Danish Data Protection Agency expects these municipalities to take relevant steps on the basis of the decision," writes the Danish Data Protection Agency.
- munk-a 4y agoSo basically completely sane concerns about user privacy? In an ideal world we'd limit our concerns about advertising and data sharing to the application layer, but in this modern world we need to be concerned about OS and even firmware level decisions about dialing home.
- contravariant 4y agoCould someone more knowledgeable about Chromebooks explain why banning the use of a single application is equivalent to banning Chromebooks? I thought it was a basic tablet with a webbrowser, is this wrong?
- buglunch 4y agoIt's mostly schrems 2, not the application as such. As soon as EU and US gets schrems sorted, it's back to business af usual.
- johndhi 4y agoMay never get sorted.
- jeffbee 4y agoChromeOS is a full-blown Linux implementation that happens to come with the Chrome browser but obviously also comes with the whole rest of the operating system (file browser, editors, i/o services, Debian and Android subsystems, ...)
- toast0 4y agoBanning Workspace isn't super clear. But Google Workspace is what they used to call G Suite and Google Apps and maybe one more name. That includes the sign on to the computer and the device management to enforce limitations, it includes Google Docs, it includes Google Drive which is where persistent data is typically stored for a Chromebook. If you elect not to use Workspace, there's no way to control and monitor the use of the devices. If the users login to the devices, they'd need to use a Google account, which presents the same data storage issues, so everyone would need to use the devices as a guest; but I'd bet guest use also results in unrestricted telemetry being sent to Google; and again, there's no way for the school system to manage the devices (which could enforce telemetry settings, perhaps) with users logged in as guests. On the other hand, a windows Active Directory based system might run with servers hosted by Microsoft in Azure (and probably subject to similar concerns about data access by US governments), or it can be done with servers hosted onsite by the school system, or it can be outsourced to a provider within the country or economic area. Apple computers are frankly unsuitable for this market; device management is poor. Open source operating systems could be setup however you like. Someone could setup a ChromeOS fork where the server hooks didn't need to go to Google, but I haven't seen it if it's been done. ChromeOS devices can usually run other OSes (if the other OSes support the critical hardware and the device can be convinced to boot in a method condusive to the other OS), but it might be labor intensive to setup at a school system wide level. You'd also need to come up with a different choice for productivity apllications as I don't think Google Docs would be easy to get working without Google.
- Gwypaas 4y agoBecause American authorities can through the Cloud Act reach the data which violates GDPR.
- Ansil849 4y agoBecause of data disclosure concerns, in that students' data may be disclosed to US interests.
- staticassertion 4y agoEven with Google Translate I can't read it because it's paywalled. But the first paragraph reads something like: "The Data Protection Authority has banned the use of Workspace - the applications on the Chromebook - because students' data may be disclosed to US authorities" Wouldn't that be the case with all US hosted services?
- delusional 4y agoYes, and thats what makes the decision very notable. The article touches on the implications, but Politiken is not a technical news media so nothing in depth.
- luplex 4y agoas far as I understand, the US government does not protect the rights of EU citizens, so US-hosted services are not GDPR compliant. There was a special agreement to keep them legal, "privacy shield", which was taken down by EU Courts because of US government overreach. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield#Legal_challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU%E2%80%93US_Privacy_Shield#L...
- delusional 4y agoA school district asked the danish government if they could still use google "workspace" for their teaching. The answer was no, and all other school districts were cautioned to also follow the new guidance. The "no" is said to be based on the possibility that google workspace data COULD be handed over to american authorities jy google.
- buglunch 4y agoThis is a great blogpost from simpleanalytics https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/denmark-bans-google-workspace-for-municipalities https://blog.simpleanalytics.com/denmark-bans-google-workspa...
- midasuni 4y agoIrony I guess is using google translate to read it https://politiken-dk.translate.goog/viden/art8882501/Lærere-står-med-»kæmpestort-problem«-Chromebooks-bliver-forbudt-på-danske-skoler?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://politiken-dk.translate.goog/viden/art8882501/Lærere-... “The books no longer exist. Neither do the chalkboards, they are digital too.” The world is always changing, it’s hard to go back, but many of us were shouting the warnings when people used things like chrome books. Perhaps they should flatten them and put a proper OS on them with proper storage and teach kids the importance of data sovereignty and computer freedom.
- smoldesu 4y ago> Perhaps they should flatten them and put a proper OS on them with proper storage and teach kids the importance of data sovereignty and computer freedom. It's a cute idea, but these lucky kids are probably 'upgrading' to Windows 11 with some nice in-school MDM. It's always frying-pan-to-fire situations when people get pedantic like this.
- ceeplusplus 4y agoPutting a proper OS = kids bypass the "security" and play games during class time. And you end up buying low performing spinning rust based laptops, because of the Windows license cost and higher system requirements for Windows machines.
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoEverything kids used to do with PCs that teachers didn't want them to is how they eventually became programmers.
- sofixa 4y agoEh, I don't think playing trivia games and Worms instead of doing trivial (for me) stuff with Word/Excel or writing useless (for me) Visual Basic had much to do with how i became a programmer (taught myself PHP and then used it to write a terribly insecure CMS for the school parliament, partially to impress a girl). I do think that the "curiosity" spirit applied when trying to circumvent restrictions (in school or from my parents) did help though.
- baisq 4y ago
- MichaelCollins 4y agoThey can continue to use the same computers. They only need to replace the software on those computers with something that respects the rights of the students.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- chrjxnandns 4y ago
- juanani 4y ago
- usr1106 4y agoIt lets me only read the introduction the full article is behind a paywall. Summary: The national data protection forbids continued use because students' data are transferred to the US. That's probably a good thing. Google is an evil company interested only in profiling their users instead of offering any decent customer service. And the US does allow spying on non-citizens. No reason to do any business with those. The problem is that Europe lacks any serious alternative. We live as digital colonies.
- ceeplusplus 4y ago> The problem is that Europe lacks any serious alternative As long as software engineers continue to make 1/3 of what they do in the US and founders get taxed at over 50% on their companies, this problem will continue. It is entirely self inflicted.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoEuropean tech companies complying with European regulations won't be able to compete with American companies that flaunt European regulations until they hold those American companies accountable and deny them access to the European market if they can't play by European rules. Enforcement of these regulations against American corporations will give the European software industry more room to breath.
- ceeplusplus 4y agoI don't think GDPR and the like are the reason Europe has failed to produce anywhere near the amount of successful software companies that the US and China have. It is not hard to locate a datacenter in Europe or provide a button to delete your data or display a cookie popup. In the grand scheme of things very few users use the delete button anyways, so the loss of data is immaterial. There is a massive brain drain from European schools and companies to the US (has been going for 20+ years now). If you look at the makeup of any top ranked school in the US, their MBA and STEM programs are at least 30-50% European immigrants. MBA programs in particular are overwhelmingly European immigrants. You have to ask yourself - what prompts so many people to get up and leave rather than try to build something at home? Tax policy? Lack of work ethic in the culture at home [1]? Excessive red tape for starting a business? Lack of respect for technical workers vs. managers? All of these are things to consider. You don't create a winner by working 32 hours a week, that's for sure. Like pg said in his blog [2], you win by moving faster than everyone else. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-work-less-short-workweek-employment-pandemic-11657889680 https://www.wsj.com/articles/europeans-work-less-short-workw...? [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
- roschdal 4y agoThe Google Chromebook doesn't have a real operating system, only a web browser. Good decision, Denmark.
- gtirloni 4y agoNo true Scotsman applied to operating systems? :) It can even run Linux terminals, AFAIK.
- radicaldreamer 4y agoIt's locked-down Linux under the hood and all sorts of stuff can be unlocked on it.
- munk-a 4y agoAnd yet Cloudmacs (and other similar tools exist) - so you can put a real operating system in your browser on your fake operating system.
- p1mrx 4y agoMy Chromebook has a real-enough operating system to program an ESP32 and play Portal.
- jeffbee 4y agoI really don't see what the European endgame is here. They seem to be backing themselves into a corner where due to superficial regulations they will be forced to select from a smaller pool of smaller companies with worse internal controls, worse inside risk defenses, and worse production security practices than the larger, more established, and more sophisticated multinationals. They are doing this for "privacy" but the practical outcome is going to be that whatever data they were trying to defend will be more readily available to top-tier national adversaries (China, Russia, U.S. foreign intelligence), more prone to accidental revelation, more subject to rogue insider practices, and more exposed to smaller-scale intelligence agencies that just happen to share a European jurisdiction, like the notoriously ham-handed and overreaching German BND.
- johndhi 4y agoInteresting point. Perhaps true. Certainly their intent is to have their cake and eat it too, but you're probably right that isn't going to play out. I think the problem is the complexity of running an international software business is getting harder and more complex and that is actually reducing security.
- munk-a 4y agoIf the nation of Switzerland was singlehandedly dying on the hill of privacy concerns while the whole world laughed and moved on I think your take would be the correct one - but Europe is a big economy and it has an immense amount of tech talent. SoCal may still be the Mecca of technology but Europe is no slouch - by taking a stand they are opening up a market for privacy conscious applications to thrive. In the best world Europe's actions will benefit us all in the long run and we might see a big player pivot to actually meaningfully adhere to the privacy concerns - in a less good world we'll probably see a fair amount of competition by small players within the Eurozone to provide the best software solutions while also respecting privacy. I think it's a fair criticism to fear that the data may end up in the hands of well intentioned but poorly secured applications that cause larger leaks, but we've seen huge leaks in the US even from companies that exist solely due to the value of their data (i.e. Equifax).
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- donatj 4y agoThe cookie pop up not being in English got me imagining a horrible dark pattern where you always produce the cookie popup in a language not in the users Accept-Language header...
- sylware 4y ago... actually, this is good news for the Danish children.
- johndhi 4y agoYou know what's funny? Literally any use of any technology that requires transfer of any EU personal data to a company that has any presence in the United States, is currently illegal for anyone in Europe. But we're playing this silly game where data protection authorities slowly realize "oh - Google - they have US presence right? Let's ban them," and then this flows down to EU businesses. The reality is the law is clear: any use of ... Google... AWS... MSFT (even with EU hosting)... Notion... Salesforce... GitHub... Atlassian... All of this is currently obviously illegal in EU. So we now live in a weird world of, everyone is breaking the law, who do we call on it?
- sofixa 4y agoSalesforce, Atlassian, GitHub and to a lesser extent Google, Microsoft and Amazon are only not allowed for private data, no? So there's nothing wrong with storing code on GitHub for instance. Although IPs are private data, do access logs count? If i recall correctly they don't, but I'm really not a lawyer. Edit: Actually Atlassian are an Australian company, is there an equivalent CLOUD act that makes data transfers impossible?
- Ansil849 4y ago> So we now live in a weird world of, everyone is breaking the law, who do we call on it? Welcome to today's world. This is the case, not just for corporations, but for individuals. Chances are near 100% that everyone breaks some law, every single day. This gives the State the power to prosecute you for thousands of offenses, if they so choose. There are thousands of laws, and normal lay people cannot possibly know about all of them. Moxie once wrote a fantastic blog piece on this I recommend reading: https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide.html https://moxie.org/2013/06/12/we-should-all-have-something-to... > For instance, did you know that it is a federal crime to be in possession of a lobster under a certain size? It doesn’t matter if you bought it at a grocery store, if someone else gave it to you, if it’s dead or alive, if you found it after it died of natural causes, or even if you killed it while acting in self defense. You can go to jail because of a lobster. This is just one absurd example out of thousands. And this is precisely how the State maintains coercive power over people. Everyone breaks some law, so the State can pick and choose whom to go after based on whatever random reason triggers some bureaucrat's or cop's ire.
- orangepurple 4y agoDenmark has a difficult relationship with the US An extraordinary Danish Radio report exposed how scores of children in Denmark, many of them orphans, were subject to CIA-funded experiments for at least two decades. The purpose of these activities remains unknown, as authorities continue to actively suppress the truth of what happened in the 1960s and early 1970s. The startling exposé is based on the work of documentarian Per Wennick, who was one of 311 participants in the mysterious trials. The children never learned the objective of the tortuous assessments to which they were exposed, even after they ended. According to Wennick, when he was 11 years old, he was asked at an authoritarian orphanage in Copenhagen if he wanted to try something “fun” at the local municipal hospital. It was vaguely described as an examination of how children “feel”. Believing it would be a welcome diversion, he acquiesced and even received a small sum for his participation. Wennick went on to undergo a series of regular tests, which included being forced to listen to recordings on headphones of loud noises, screams, and statements intended to scare him. Staff strapped him to a chair while electrodes were placed on his arms, legs, and chest, measuring his heart rate, temperature, and sweat levels. These experiments continued until 1973, when Wennick was 24-years-old. However, a decade later, while in a hospital due to a skin complaint, he learned his visit—in fact, his every contact with healthcare services— was reported to the Danish Psychological Institute for reasons never made clear to him. Fast forward to 2018. While at a film festival in the United States, he saw the documentary "Three Identical Strangers," which tells the story of triplets deliberately separated at birth and offered up for adoption to families of differing socioeconomic backgrounds, in a covert and highly unethical scientific “nature versus nurture” study. It occurred to Wennick he too may have been unwittingly caught up in a similar experiment. Continued at https://thedissenter.org/cia-funded-experiments-on-danish-orphans-for-decades/ https://thedissenter.org/cia-funded-experiments-on-danish-or...
- sofixa 4y agoI'm always baffled at how places like the CIA get enough people to work for them. Who says to themselves "they torture, assasinate, fund terrorist groups, help terrible regimes, experiment with people, including children, those are the people i want to work for!"?
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- metadat 4y agoChromebook pros: - Digital experiences can offer different learning formats which might work better for a subset of kids. Cons: - Having computers in the classroom is a huge distraction, and not a valuable use of time for teachers to have to manage on top of everything else; kids constantly abuse the privilege and goof off instead of paying attention to the lesson. Teachers can either fail at their job and ignore it, or must constantly monitor and police all the screens while they are teaching. As if it's not already hard enough to manage the class? - Chromebooks are expensive for school districts, they pay large ongoing sums of money to Google for the G-Suite SaaS contracts, too. They're not getting a great deal, districts often don't even have the expertise to evaluate if it's cost effective or not. - Chromebooks get filthy and gross, with kid sludge and boogers and whatever else. Who should be tasked with cleaning them? - Chromebooks result in excessive, unnecessary e-waste. Google offers updates for only a few years before deprecating them. They only run a web browser, but somehow they must be EOLd after only 5 years? Ok.. How about bringing back the books and chalkboards? Ill-informed parents would probably freak out and have a meltdown, thinking their kid is getting a second rate education without the stupid Chromebook during school time. We are stuck in the minima of a very local function. So dumb. This isn't the biggest problem though, it's the US public education system that created and enables all this, constantly making changes to curriculae and requirements in a non data-driven way.
- josephcsible 4y ago> somehow they must be EOLd after only 5 years? I have a Chromebook that was released in 2019 and will get updates until 2027, so there's definitely not a rule that they can only get updates for 5 years.
- metadat 4y agoSounds like you got a nice one! How much money and resources do you think goog is spending on an ongoing basis to ensure they sell fewer Chromebooks to schools (and in general) in the future? It's much easier (and more profitable / less expensive) from a program management perspective to instead deprecate the bulk of these cheap machines after five years to ensure "consistent user experience". I hope I'm wrong! My experience with capitalism tells me I'm probably not. Less e-waste isn't profitable in the short to medium term. :(
- rezna 4y agoA tricky question. Many schools in other EU countries are using Google Office Suite and Google Classroom. Is that also the same issue? My kids reports are published via Google Docs. How about Microsoft's Office 365? Do they have data centers in EU? Or is that the same issue? Because then we also have fully Microsoft based school including extended Teams usage. Basically how do you want to have any cloud based app running in EU when most of the providers don't have data centers here in EU?
- sofixa 4y ago> Basically how do you want to have any cloud based app running in EU when most of the providers don't have data centers here in EU? All big providers have EU regions, and there are EU-native providers, but the problem is that even from an EU datacenter Microsoft/Google/Amazon can be forced to share data with the US government.