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Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[flagged]
- throwaway71271 3y ago> Bristol city council and Avon and Somerset police, who worked together on the system, insist it is in place to protect children, not criminalise them Of course! When has surveillance been used for anything, but protection?
- robertlagrant 3y agoThis is a category error. The worst uses of surveillance in general do not apply to this case, unless someone tells us how it does.
- donatj 3y agoWhen you give someone a power, always consider that it will basically always be used in the worst imaginable way. Regardless of any and all lip service to the contrary.
- robertlagrant 3y agoYes, consider the power itself, not the category the power belongs to. If a school knows 2 extra things about you (on benefits; father in jail for child abuse), that's not the same as 24x7 video surveillance. Risk assess the reality, not the overarching category.
- throwaway71271 3y agoWhy dont we just take all the children? Let the state raise them. Father was in jail, he should never see his children ever again. Mother was drunk, take the kids and lets sterlize the parents just in case. I am making an extreme argument, there is obviously a line for CPS, but you have to remember that every system in the modern society is trying to be total. The police wants to stop crime, at all cost, if they could put is all in matrix like cells so we cant move they would. I will leave it to you to think what the ultimate goal of the education system is. The only thing that stops systems from becoming total is our votes and also the fact that they are somewhat adversarial to each other e.g. if one becomes more total it consumes from the other system's power and so each systems fight for its life and multi dimensional predator/pray equilibrium is formed.
- robertlagrant 3y ago> you have to remember that every system in the modern society is trying to be total No, it's not. A school wanting to know a few things about a child is not "trying to be total". I get the extreme view; it can be warranted, but again, the worst case is not the average case, and we should just analyse the current case on its own merits.
- rightbyte 3y agoThe Police is not a paper clip machine. As soon as they consume half of GDP taking more will decrease their funding since they don't produce anything.
- krisoft 3y ago> you have to remember that every system in the modern society is trying to be total. What does “be total” means? I’m not familiar with the phrase. > The police wants to stop crime, at all cost Are you joking? Clearly not. There is so many things they could do if they “want to stop crime at all cost”. > I will leave it to you to think what the ultimate goal of the education system is. I don’t know what you are insinuating. Could you spell it out please?
- adolph 3y agoYes: 'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy by Daniel J. Solove https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Franz Kafka’s The Trial, which depicts a bureaucracy with inscrutable purposes that uses people’s information to make important decisions about them, yet denies the people the ability to participate in how their information is used. The problems captured by the Kafka metaphor are of a different sort than the problems caused by surveillance. They often do not result in inhibition or chilling. Instead, they are problems of information processing—the storage, use, or analysis of data—rather than information collection. They affect the power relationships between people and the institutions of the modern state. They not only frustrate the individual by creating a sense of helplessness and powerlessness, but they also affect social structure by altering the kind of relationships people have with the institutions that make important decisions about their lives.
- robertlagrant 3y agoSorry, I don't know how these relate to what I said.
- badcppdev 3y agoHave you thought about the number of powers both large and small that are delegated so that society can operate.
- diogenes4 3y agoIf society is operating, it's not operating well.
- freeopinion 3y agoFor example, if you allow ordinary people to operate heavy automobiles, somebody is going to use one to intentionally kill somebody else. Did you think about that before you unleashed millions of these killing machines? I'm not excited about developments in Bristol, but introducing extreme paranoia isn't helpful. Just a low level of healthy paranoia is good enough.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoThe climate change crowd probably shouldn't be so glib about cars being murder machines. Supposedly, they are murdering an entire planet. Also, at least where I am, the drunk driving rates are high enough, that murder-by-car isn't exactly uncommon. I don't think your counter-argument hits as hard as you think it does.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoPredatory teachers may use this to get some background details on their targets or to identify potential targets for grooming. Luckily those kinds of teachers are rare, but not unknown. Also, some police are known to be racist, so if a certain officer gets it in their head to harass a nationality or ethnic group, then their unsubstantiated accusations would be entered into the database and this could then affect the families' chances of getting a decent education or indeed, the teachers may decide to not enter them into certain exams if they've been prejudiced by the data.
- RajT88 3y ago> Also, some police are known to be racist Worse yet, most police are at least classist. Poor neighborhoods are policed far more heavily than wealthier neighborhoods. What happens when there's already heavy policing of poorer neighborhoods, and police are trained to "get the bad ones off the streets"? They look for any excuse to arrest and prosecute people in those neighborhoods. Once you have a felony conviction on your record, you're basically unemployable for 10 years (in the US at least). Thus continuing the cycle of poverty. And of course, minorities tend to be disproportionately poor. This makes that cycle worse. Anyone in the proximity of such a felon due to this data collection and aggregation now becomes a target by the police, raising their chances of getting caught up in the legal system and experiencing life-long consequences because of it.
- adolph 3y ago> Poor neighborhoods are policed far more heavily than wealthier neighborhoods. I see this sentiment often. If this were true it would represent a criminal opportunity to victimize "wealthier neighborhoods." As far as I can tell: that does not seem to be the case very often; and victimization rates are higher in "poor neighborhoods." I can see the logic of an argument that excessive legal criminalization induces cycles of harmful involvement in law enforcement and legal systems. However, using the language "policed far more heavily" as opposed to "criminalized far more heavily" places the blame on a convenient-to-scapegoat blue-collar occupation rather than directly upon the powerful people who compose the ever-expanding encyclopedia of laws and regulations.
- ballenf 3y ago> worst uses of surveillance in general do not apply to this case So only the "pretty bad" uses of surveillance apply and that's ok? Not sure I understand your point.
- robertlagrant 3y agoIf a school knows that a child must be kept away from their abusive mother, for example, that is what is being lumped in with "surveillance" here. I'm saying the worst cases of surveillance are not appropriate to judge what the school is doing. We should judge what the school is doing on its own merits/demerits.
- Ylpertnodi 3y ago"The force said “robust privacy and sharing agreements” had been approved by the Information Commissioner’s Office and development of the system done in collaboration with the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation." ...but not the parents.
- ncr100 3y agoAre these government institutions in Bristol? If so do they have public blogs or other citizen friendly mechanics for sharing important decisions?
- tempaway22641 3y agoYep here's a UK gov report about the data sharing that makes the app possible https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1177697/Improving_multi-agency_information_sharing_2023.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
- ncr100 3y agoVery neat. Thank you @tempaway22641
- RHSeeger 3y agoThere is plenty of information about a child that, if made known to the parents, would wreak havoc on the child's life. For example, through metadata alone, it could be possible to identify that a child has LGBTQA interests/associations/etc. There are plenty of children where the parents knowing this could lead to them being punished harshly, or even on the streets. I don't think automatically sharing everything with parents is the expectation/panacea you seem to imply it would be. Admittedly, I don't think the schools should have this information either.
- merpnderp 3y agoThe title made it sound like the schools were installing malware on students' devices, but as far as I can tell this is just a central database bringing together data from different government agencies. I'm not sure I see the problem with schools getting an update that a kid was arrested by police or that their family is on food aid or something. Schools in my area need to know which kids are living in poverty because they send home backpacks of food with them over the summer.
- hef19898 3y agoI am not sure any of that is any of a schools business. Not even sure something like that would be legal over here.
- Doctor_Fegg 3y agoIn the UK it's absolutely common for schools to be involved in family welfare simply because the other arms of the state have withered away to uselessness. In theory there's a concept of "Team Around The Child" where the various agencies - school, social services, social housing, sometimes even police - can come together to help the child through the rough circumstances they're in. In practice, the only one of those that isn't entirely dysfunctional is the school, and so you'll often find school headteachers or SENCOs basically acting as the sole champion of a kid from a troubled family.
- ballenf 3y agoMaybe the real problem is that there exists a system design to allow querying a person's family connections to police interactions. This isn't even just convictions, but basically any accusations or investigations. The wording is kind of vague, but I think this framing is supported by the article. The existence of such a system just seems dystopian. Seems entirely reasonable that issues of domestic violence should be known to schools, but this goes way beyond that. It's only a matter of time before more public institutions manufacture reasons to use the same system. Surely the NIH should know about your police interactions before treating you.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWhy would they keep it secret from the families and children unless it's doing something nefarious?
- jjgreen 3y agoQuite, if you've done nothing wrong then you've nothing to hide ...
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoIf we've done nothing wrong, then why are they looking... By the way, can you send me your bank and credit card details so that I can just verify that you've done nothing wrong?
- jjgreen 3y agoSigh. I was agreeing with you, referring to Bristol Council who run the scheme, turning their own propaganda against them.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoSorry, I was expanding on the sentiment, not disagreeing with you.
- ben_w 3y agohttps://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/children-and-families/insight-bristol https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/... They're not keeping it secret. It's the same sort of thing as all the EULAs/T&Cs we have to click agree to: much too boring to pay attention to, unless it's a headline. That said: > How long we will keep your personal information? > We will hold this information for as long as it is needed, or if we are required to do so by law. In practice this means that your personal information may be retained for the relevant period listed below: > • Integrated family Support (1772), 75 years - https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/5977-insight-bristol-privacy-notice/file https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/5977-insight-bris... How on Earth is 75 years a legitimate duration for any of this information?
- samwillis 3y agoI have a friend who has been the safeguarding lead in a school, it's a tough and emotional job with enormous responsibility. He's found it incredibly fulfilling, but I can only imagine what he has had to deal with based on the few hits we have heard. My understanding is that the teachers that take on these roles are incredibly well trained, understand the responsibility, and know how to be both discreet and keep things privet. I believe a lot of the information available through this app was already being made available to the safeguarding leads in schools. Challenging the use of this app is good, that's the role of these origination, checks and balances and all that. We need to be sure it is a net benefit for all involved. There is no denying though that if it helps teachers in safeguarding children that is a good thing.
- swagempire 3y agoWhat is a "safegaurding lead"? It sounds kind of creepy from your description.
- badcppdev 3y agoIt's the UK term for the person in any organisation that deals with vulnerable people (children, patients, disabled people, old people) that has the responsibility of taking any allegations, concerns, accusations and making sure they are dealt with properly. That means documenting, investigating, and escalating to the authorities.
- swagempire 3y agoShouldn't that be a lawyer normally? It sounds like they have a great potential to violate human rights.
- notahacker 3y agoThis may come as a surprise to you, but schools, community football clubs, nursing homes etc don't have full time lawyers in the UK. Someone has to decide when to call the police, when to call social services, when to [not] immediately alert parents, guardians of next or kin, when to seek further legal advice etc. And frankly the last person you'd want to be the main point of contact for vulnerable people dealing with sensitive issues is a lawyer whose job it is to minimise problems for the organisation (or maximise work for themselves...)
- ben_w 3y ago> Schools using the TFE app receive alerts about children’s and family members’ contact with police, antisocial behaviour and domestic violence incidents. The system also gives schools access to sensitive personal details about families’ financial situations. Financial situations? That sounds like they're monitoring what's easy to monitor, even if defending against domestic violence was the original intention. That said, "we joined up thinking" is definitely a valid argument for much of what the UK is doing right now. For those not following UK news: a large number of schools had to be closed this month due to people finally started paying attention to the fact that reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete lasted 30 years but had been installed 50 years ago. Monitoring that would have been sensible… but they'd have needed joined-up thinking to have noticed the problem had started happening in the 90s. (Thus making it one of the few cases where one can legitimately also spread blame to the previous Labour government even though the Conservatives have been in power for the last 13 years).
- stainablesteel 3y agothe article constantly mentions racism and i don't understand how racism fits into this picture i think when they write things like that it means "we don't mean to expose the racist behavior of certain black students when we spy on them through apps we force them to install", which is pretty crooked all around
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago> the article constantly mentions racism and i don't understand how racism fits into this picture Some police are known to be racist, so if a certain officer gets it in their head to harass a nationality or ethnic group, then their unsubstantiated accusations would be entered into the database and this could then affect the families' chances of getting a decent education or indeed, the teachers may decide to not enter them into certain exams if they've been prejudiced by the data.
- onetimeusename 3y agoI noticed that too and was wondering about it, then I saw this quote: Critics say the reality is that this risks children from minority ethnic or poorer backgrounds being profiled as being involved in gangs or county lines operations. So the fear seems to stem from this.
- didntcheck 3y agoIt's a Guardian article. You get used to it...
- swayvil 3y agoWe call it "right to privacy". But what if we call it "right to hide" or "right to lie" or "right to censor"? That certainly puts a different light on it. Universal 24-7 communication about absolutely everything would be a very very good thing. Take our whole society up a level. Except that we have these big predators lurking about. So the problem isn't the privacy, it's the predators. Right?
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoI think you've got it back-to-front. Personal identifying information does not belong to any company that gathers or purchases it unless they have specific permission (i.e. not some dark pattern "click here to disable the non-collection of your data") from the person and it is reasonable for them to have that data for their stated purpose. (Somewhat paraphrased from GDPR). The company and or government department need to have a strong reason to be manipulating the family's data and the family should have the right to see the data that is being held on them and also correct or delete it if it is incorrect.
- whelp_24 3y agoIs this parody? Is the right to lie really all that scary? Do you want to live in a world where you can hide nothing?
- hollowdene 3y agoI feel like the correct answer is proper oversight of how the system is used, not a blanket shutdown in case it's misused. Perhaps these charities who complaining should be involved in that? The goal of the service seems sensible, especially when you consider how often public services have made serious mistakes due to "information silos".
- morkalork 3y agoNot just the UK does this, in Canada there is something similar: https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzdp5v/police-in-canada-are-tracking-peoples-negative-behavior-in-a-risk-database https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzdp5v/police-in-canada-are-... And it's not just police sharing data with schools, but also in the other direction where schools share data like unauthorized absences.
- tempaway22641 3y agoLots of people here not really understanding how this works in the UK. A few times there's been a big media stories in the UK about a child who got badly abused or killed in domestic situations and then afterwards it turns out that various people (social services, teachers, charities etc) had concerns about the child's safety but concerns weren't written down or joined together and so the child could have been saved/rescued but wasn't. So now in the UK we have a system of 'safeguarding referrals' where if someone has concerns they must make a safeguarding referral to social services but social services are terribly underfunded so the safeguarding referrals tend to pile up or just get filed unless they are really urgent. So now we have the problem of someone somewhere being responsible for wading through all the information and then identifying when the various reports from various places add up to a serious situation. Hence you get an app like this where info from various agencies can be gathered in one place. https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/children-and-families/insight-bristol https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/... If you're going to hold government services such as social services or teachers responsible for childrens safety then this sort of thing is needed. And if you think thats not the job of the state then fair enough thats your opinion but in the UK the status quo is that it is the job of the state to look after vulnerable children/people.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tempaway22641 3y agoHere's the description of the system from https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/children-and-families/insight-bristol https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/... Think Family Database (TFD) --------------------------- The Think Family Database (TFD) supports and connects safeguarding professionals from Bristol City Council and other public sector organisations. The data collected by Insight Bristol is securely held in the TFD, and includes information from approximately 50,000 families across Bristol. The TFD pulls together data from several public sector sources including: -Bristol City Council (Children Social care, Early Help, Education) -Avon and Somerset Police -Department for Education -Department for Work and Pensions -South West Commissioning Support Unit (SWCSU) The data from these organisations displays vulnerabilities or needs. It gives practitioners working with families an understanding of: -the family's immediate need -which services the need comes from The practitioner can contact the relevant service. This helps the practitioner better support the family because: -the practitioner can discuss the family's immediate issues with the agencies involved -the family does not have to repeat the same story This embedded approach helps practitioners coordinate support for families who are most in need. Sometimes those families are obvious but often they are hidden. The TFD highlights the hidden issues. Using targeted analytics, the system also helps identify children at risk of: -sexual exploitation -criminal exploitation -not being in education, employment, or training This information supplements the wider council Think Family approach. These models do not replace professional judgement or decision-making. They guide and supplement the work of professionals and provide information about children at risk that professionals may not easily see. This early identification means that support and interventions can be put in place to stop problems turning into crises.
- imnotlost 3y agoThe Brits have gone all in on the surveillance society with their CCTV cameras all over the place and now the Online Safety Bill. Still early days, I'm sure it'll be expanded at every opportunity. Maybe 1984 is the blueprint. In the US the fundamental Christians are grabbing power and they're taking flamethrowers to books and talking about tracking women who may go across state-lines to get an abortion. Self-censorship for fear of being 'canceled' is putting a damper on the spirit of freedom. It's perhaps more along the lines of Fahrenheit 451. May you live in interesting times.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoWell, as a Brit, I agree with the surveillance society bit although the police don't even have time to go after the crims, so I suspect that most surveillance footage is ignored unless you're a political figure. As a devout atheist, I have a particular view of Christians and from what I can gather, the Christo-fascists in the U.S. trying to grab power are Christian in name only and represent almost the exact opposite of the teachings of Jesus. I think it's more of a fascist movement that picks on the most gullible and easily led of groups for their support base.
- giantg2 3y ago"although the police don't even have time to go after the crims," That's how it always works, even in the US. Selective enforcement of the laws against some group (or to favor some group).
- KennyBlanken 3y agoIt's not just the British. For decades in the US, school administrators have been obsessed with monitoring student's online activity and email. There is a lucrative industry providing what amounts to glue and regexs for detecting and reporting suicidal language, threats of violence, and so on (you can be sure there's detection of LGBTQ language for all the various religious schools.) There is a subreddit for K-12 IT administrators and the stuff people would post there about monitoring students was pretty shocking (also, the levels of incompetence are also pretty shocking. Most of the crowd are barely competent at IT basics. People who are in charge of IT at multiple campuses.) Tell your kids that any email account associated with the school, and anything they even type into a school device (phone, tablet, laptop, computer) is monitored, and even the most innocent keyword could flag their email and put it front of admins. If they want to talk to a trusted friend about anything regarding the administrator or teachers, or something regarding mental health, sexuality, bullying, violence, etc - they need to do it on devices not associated with the school, with no school management software installed, on non-school accounts. In fact, they should probably never use their school accounts or devices for anything except strictly school related communication and work. It's amazing how completely ignorant these admins are that, say, hauling a suicidal student into a meeting with administrators is just about the last fucking thing that kid needs, and yet that's exactly what was described in some posts and discussions. The only thing they care about is snooping in student's activity and covering the school's ass.
- karaterobot 3y agoI guess main the problem is the secrecy. Even the article is unable to say exactly what information the app has, and who has access to it—they mention safeguarding leads being the users, but then talk about how "schools" get notified when a student has an encounter with the police. Does this information get sent only to qualified professionals with clear accountability, or does it get sent to a shared email address that the administrators' receptionist reads? The secretive approach to this is unsettling, because it implies they know they're doing something they'd get in trouble for. It sounds like the administration's response was "well, this app was public, parents could have read up on it if they wanted", which resembles the old better to ask forgiveness than permission tactic. Clearly, every part of this plan should have been proactively explained to parents beforehand.
- voakbasda 3y agoSecrecy is an integral part of the effectiveness of the system. If you know how the algorithm works, you can find ways to game it. That doesn't make the practice acceptable, but I think it explains the approach. FWIW, the same secretive approach prevents anyone from knowing why their social media accounts were banned, or how changes to a website will affect their ranking in the search engines. Exposing the underlying algorithms creates an arms race that will lead to even bigger problems.
- doctorpangloss 3y agoHmm, but you can deploy essentially infinite resources for free in arbitrage to exploiting an algorithmic quirk in social media distribution, search engine rankings, etc. What exactly is the comparable threat model here? It's ridiculous. What are they exploiting, trace amounts of government resources? For one family?
- tempaway22641 3y agoThere's no secrecy about it, the app, who has access to it and why is explained here: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/children-and-families/insight-bristol https://www.bristol.gov.uk/residents/social-care-and-health/...
- roody15 3y agoWe use a product called Linewize in my district for around 2500 students. To be honest its reporting is creepy to the degree it analyzes and tries to assign labels to student activity. Hate Speech, aggression, depression, suicide, criminality, gangs, sexual conduct, etc. I think we as a society need to decide are we just biological automatons that can be controlled via inputs and outputs? Or do we believe in some form of free will and with that some personal privacy.
- limbicsystem 3y agoCan we also have a discussion about the 'normal' behaviour monitoring tools like Classcharts that are used by pretty much every school in the UK? These collect fine-grained data about behaviour throughout the day and link it both to the child but also the people that are near that child. It operates all across the child's school career. I've tried to opt my kids out of this but it's really hard. At best I think they have stopped logging their behaviour but they are still in the data as a 'network' influence. Classcharts used to boast about how their AI could do behavioural profiling but that looked too creepy so now they just talk about how teachers can use the data for seating planning. I'm pretty sure that I could use the data to profile a child pretty effectively even after they have left school. God only knows what happens to the data or how it is secured - the school literally don't care and think I'm crazy for even asking.
- kwhitefoot 3y agoI'm so glad I don't have children in school in the UK. There seems to be so much going on that has nothing to do with education. I'm glad that when I was at school in the sixties and seventies in the UK none of that existed and teachers pretty much just taught. How did this sort of thing creep into schools without anyone protesting?
- Silhouette 3y agoHow did it creep in without protest? "Staff using the app have told the criminal justice campaign charity Fair Trials that they keep it secret from parents and carers, and admitted many would be concerned about it if they knew of it." I worry that our school system is now made up of teachers and support staff who are still absurdly undervalued and trying really hard to give our kids a good education but then a whole layer of management above them who have lost the plot.
- bowsamic 3y ago> How did this sort of thing creep into schools without anyone protesting? See the discussion in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37594179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37594179
- giantg2 3y agoSounds a lot like the systems some police departments are using to profile people who might commit crimes before they actually happen. Voyager, or something like that?
- surfingdino 3y agoAre they using similar software at Eton?
- GPTV_1 3y ago[dead]