
Under digital surveillance: how American schools spy on millions of kids - morisy
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/22/school-student-surveillance-bark-gaggle
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red-indian
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.

~~~
heavyset_go
> * it's kind of weird that we are opposed to children's safety.*

They're hoovering up PII that belongs to children and giving it to some
company, and parents have to just trust that both the school and said company
can keep it safe.

~~~
deogeo
> trust that both the school and said company can keep it safe.

Safe, to be used later to build a profile of your child, and sell it to
employers, insurance companies, the police, intelligence agencies, or anyone
else willing to pay a few cents or send a subpoena.

~~~
heavyset_go
Exactly how safe will these kids be if someone with nefarious intentions gets
their hands on their PII? Not very, if you ask me.

~~~
deogeo
How safe will they be when, 20 years from now, their classmate is arrested for
political crimes, and this data shows that they were friends during school?

~~~
heavyset_go
Not safe at all.

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itronitron
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
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
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
> 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.

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Ididntdothis
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.

~~~
gerbilly
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
How did the "free range" generation (before it was unusual enough to even have
a name) turn into the overbearing parenting generation?

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gerbilly
The everse network effect driven by:

1) Ambition for kids to get into the right preschool so they can get into
Harvard or whatever, causing more parents to put their kids in 'enriching'
scheduled activities.

2) Unreasonable fear fueled by the media. Ironically, stranger child abduction
gas been declining steadily for decades and is at an all time low.

This has effectively removed more free range kids to the point now that if you
wanted your kids to go play outside, they wouldn't find any other kids out
there to play with.

This is why I call it a reverse network effect. The value in playing outside
for a kid is now lower since there are fewer potential playmates out there.

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slics
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
Ahh yes, the good old protect the children argument.

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johnisgood
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.

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grawprog
>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?

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fetus8
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.

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gruez
Imagine if your sibling/classmates decided to "prank" you by searching up
certain terms when you're not looking.

~~~
leetcrew
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
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
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
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
> 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
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.

~~~
leetcrew
even in school, it's actually kind of important that students don't let each
other trivially access their accounts. if someone logs into your account and
bullies a classmate or copies your work, "I left it unlocked in the cafeteria"
can't be an acceptable excuse.

> 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.

this is my point. I'm not holding the kids to any standard; I'm just saying
this is a fundamental precondition to being entrusted with an account at an
organization. if it's not reasonable to expect this of them, _the school
should not be issuing computers /accounts_. the ultimate responsibility
absolutely lies with the school.

~~~
lovich
I understand your statement after explanation but in your original post you
said

>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.

There is no English interpretation of this that comes across as you saying
it's the schools responsibility. It 100% sounds like you put the onus on the
children

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Mathnerd314
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.

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jupp0r
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
_If_ they realize what is going on. It might end up having the opposite
effect: normalizing surveillance from a young age…

~~~
Enginerrrd
Thats the more likely scenario IMO.

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campfireveteran
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.

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Konnstann
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
> _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
> ... 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.'

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

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

~~~
elliekelly
> Parents who sue schools are actually suing society.

As a member of society I, for one, appreciate their efforts to protect our
collective privacy.

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mensetmanusman
The school doesn’t pay though, just taxpayers...

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raxxorrax
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
This sounds more cynical than constructive to me.

