Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Clear backpacks, monitored emails: U.S. students under constant surveillance
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/dec/02/school-surveillance-us-schools-safety-shootings
537 comments
My Aunt has a child in early middle school - years 6 through 9 or so, for people outside the US.
Not only does the poor kid have a school-issued laptop with heavy monitoring tools installed on it, but they are also required to bring a smartphone to school! My Aunt had made them tape over the laptop's webcam and explained that everything the kid typed could probably be seen by the school, but she was still concerned about the microphone. And the kid is completely incapable of avoiding the more toxic aspects of social media and adtech, because the constant use of smartphones has become a central part of their education. At the age of what, 11-15?
I can only imagine what this is teaching the child. When we caught up over the holidays, they seemed to be more fed up and disgusted with technology than interested in it.
Not only does the poor kid have a school-issued laptop with heavy monitoring tools installed on it, but they are also required to bring a smartphone to school! My Aunt had made them tape over the laptop's webcam and explained that everything the kid typed could probably be seen by the school, but she was still concerned about the microphone. And the kid is completely incapable of avoiding the more toxic aspects of social media and adtech, because the constant use of smartphones has become a central part of their education. At the age of what, 11-15?
I can only imagine what this is teaching the child. When we caught up over the holidays, they seemed to be more fed up and disgusted with technology than interested in it.
THIS IS NOT OKAY.
We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance.
And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that data that's been collected on you your whole life will be used against you to give you a flawed AI-generated social "score" that determines what you can or cannot do, or to determine whether or not you're a "threat" (see: someone who speaks out against wrongdoings) to such a government.
We can't have children being used to constant surveillance and accepting this as a part of life. It sets them up for so many problems in the future, where they won't understand the serious implications of constant tracking and surveillance.
And sure, nothing too bad comes out of this stuff right now in most of the world, but have you seen China? The minute a government decides to do so, all that data that's been collected on you your whole life will be used against you to give you a flawed AI-generated social "score" that determines what you can or cannot do, or to determine whether or not you're a "threat" (see: someone who speaks out against wrongdoings) to such a government.
Poor, emotion driven risk management as usual. School shootings kill very few people per year and are rare events (especially in places that can afford this tech) despite what the New York Times would have you believe. Why not focus efforts on things that actually do kill young people, namely:
* Car crashes (teach people to drive more defensively)
* Suicides (provide better mental health services)
* Violence that occurs outside of school (intervene to stop conflict before it becomes an issue, which would also help prevent these shootings)
* Opiods
* Car crashes (teach people to drive more defensively)
* Suicides (provide better mental health services)
* Violence that occurs outside of school (intervene to stop conflict before it becomes an issue, which would also help prevent these shootings)
* Opiods
I work IT at a school. I try to strike a balance. I try to avoid doing creepy things in the name of security theater. I don't do TLS MITM, even though it might make web filtering easier. We do have some classroom monitoring software, but it can only be used while students are on our network.
I agree that there is a bit too much reliance on technical measures (ex: monitoring software) to police computer usage. This can be in absence of teaching kids personal responsibility. However, in a classroom environment it helps teachers immensely. While 80% of your students might handle themselves mostly, trying to police those remaining manually can eat up a lot of instructional time.
One point on the article:
> Teenagers are warned that the school is tracking what they do, and that they can get in trouble for visiting inappropriate websites.
If the school gets gov funds for IT, they have to be CIPA compliant[0]. This includes filtering adult websites and logging access to them. Fail to do so and you lose access to a lot of government funding through E-Rate[1]. The law is vague and somewhat up to school admin interpretation. I've seen some pretty intense surveillance regimes implemented in the name of CIPA.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Internet_Protecti... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Rate
I agree that there is a bit too much reliance on technical measures (ex: monitoring software) to police computer usage. This can be in absence of teaching kids personal responsibility. However, in a classroom environment it helps teachers immensely. While 80% of your students might handle themselves mostly, trying to police those remaining manually can eat up a lot of instructional time.
One point on the article:
> Teenagers are warned that the school is tracking what they do, and that they can get in trouble for visiting inappropriate websites.
If the school gets gov funds for IT, they have to be CIPA compliant[0]. This includes filtering adult websites and logging access to them. Fail to do so and you lose access to a lot of government funding through E-Rate[1]. The law is vague and somewhat up to school admin interpretation. I've seen some pretty intense surveillance regimes implemented in the name of CIPA.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Internet_Protecti... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Rate
Unpopular opinion: make private gun ownership illegal instead of forcing kids to be monitored to make sure they're not carrying
This looks like an XY problem[0] on a massive scale.
Because the grown-ups can't figure out how to solve the top-level problems, they are instead dealing with the low-level symptoms and applying band-aids.
It also reeks of political pork to me.
I admit that enumerating the top-level problems is politically fraught, but I think they can be neatly condensed into:
* that mass shootings occur, ever
* that we cannot control childrens' use of the internet in any meaningful way
* that children are seeing through the thin veneer of meaningfulness that life in the US is supposed to have (notably traditional career paths and religion)
I don't pretend to have easy answers, but see-through backpacks is security theater that is the stuff of Bruce Schneier competitions.
[0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/66378/213169
Because the grown-ups can't figure out how to solve the top-level problems, they are instead dealing with the low-level symptoms and applying band-aids.
It also reeks of political pork to me.
I admit that enumerating the top-level problems is politically fraught, but I think they can be neatly condensed into:
* that mass shootings occur, ever
* that we cannot control childrens' use of the internet in any meaningful way
* that children are seeing through the thin veneer of meaningfulness that life in the US is supposed to have (notably traditional career paths and religion)
I don't pretend to have easy answers, but see-through backpacks is security theater that is the stuff of Bruce Schneier competitions.
[0] https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/66378/213169
Why do they spend so many words talking about preventing self-harm and suicide? In my experience the school doesn't actually care, so long as they don't off themselves on school grounds. At least when kids died when I was at school, the administration was pitiless towards their siblings' assignments and attendance, and punished them for crying in grief.
The schools will argue that surveillance of students promotes safety and good behavior. That might be true up to a point. But, they're missing out on the opportunity to teach a deeper, more important lesson, which is how to behave when you're not being watched.
Would we rather live in a society where people are only doing the right thing because they're being watched, or where people do the right thing because they've internalized morals and ethics so it doesn't matter if they're watched?
I'd argue the latter is better. Merely pleasing your watchers is not personal responsibility. It's control and confinement to whatever you think the watchers want to see. But, when/if the surveillance rails come off, then what happens? Then we have people who have never stood on their own ethical two feet.
Would we rather live in a society where people are only doing the right thing because they're being watched, or where people do the right thing because they've internalized morals and ethics so it doesn't matter if they're watched?
I'd argue the latter is better. Merely pleasing your watchers is not personal responsibility. It's control and confinement to whatever you think the watchers want to see. But, when/if the surveillance rails come off, then what happens? Then we have people who have never stood on their own ethical two feet.
From my POV this is the natural continuation of an already-fucked-up situation.
The rights of children have historically been neglected, and so we inflict on them what we dare not inflict on ourselves.
I realized as a child that my parents were sending me to a fucked up place. They did it because they were out to lunch and not paying attention. I've never understood why most people, who sincerely love their children, send them to these places.
Education per se is the secondary reason for their existence. The primary reason is conformity, which they are much more successful at achieving (than education.)
The single, simple metric to tell whether or not your school system is actually educational is the ratio of teachers to children. The range of 1/6 is probably the upper limit. You might get away with 1/10 if the teacher is truly magical. The modern ranges pr 1/20 - 1/40 are absurd. Fucked up Lord of the Flies shit goes down when you get that many kids together w/o adequate supervision. You were all children once, you know what I mean.
Modern "school" systems are hell-worlds. If you love your children, don't send them to hell-worlds.
The rights of children have historically been neglected, and so we inflict on them what we dare not inflict on ourselves.
I realized as a child that my parents were sending me to a fucked up place. They did it because they were out to lunch and not paying attention. I've never understood why most people, who sincerely love their children, send them to these places.
Education per se is the secondary reason for their existence. The primary reason is conformity, which they are much more successful at achieving (than education.)
The single, simple metric to tell whether or not your school system is actually educational is the ratio of teachers to children. The range of 1/6 is probably the upper limit. You might get away with 1/10 if the teacher is truly magical. The modern ranges pr 1/20 - 1/40 are absurd. Fucked up Lord of the Flies shit goes down when you get that many kids together w/o adequate supervision. You were all children once, you know what I mean.
Modern "school" systems are hell-worlds. If you love your children, don't send them to hell-worlds.
Disappointed to see the young being indoctrinated so early to accept the surveillance state.
> Water bottles must also be clear, so school officials can see the color of the liquid inside.
Given the huge range of drinks available in the USA, especially soft drinks, I'm curious to know what colour isn't acceptable.
Given the huge range of drinks available in the USA, especially soft drinks, I'm curious to know what colour isn't acceptable.
Sort of consistent with the idea that U.S. public high schools prepare students for prison.
Why respect authorities or society at all when it's arbitrary like that. It teaches learned helplessness and corruption and creates crappy people. Public schools don't have money, and when they get it, they spend it on this? Private schools and homeschooling programs seem to have a bright future.
Why respect authorities or society at all when it's arbitrary like that. It teaches learned helplessness and corruption and creates crappy people. Public schools don't have money, and when they get it, they spend it on this? Private schools and homeschooling programs seem to have a bright future.
Social trust has been falling for decades[1], and will continue to fall.
All of these epiphenomena will get worse until we take social trust seriously.
[1] - https://www.bi.team/blogs/social-trust-is-one-of-the-most-im...
All of these epiphenomena will get worse until we take social trust seriously.
[1] - https://www.bi.team/blogs/social-trust-is-one-of-the-most-im...
Not saying it's ok but there is a fair amount of schadenfreude to be had knowing that stuff they made me do in the 90s going to predominantly black schools causes so much outrage when applied to everyone else.
That being said schools shouldn't feel like prison. Students shouldn't feel like their privacy and agency is forfeit. They should not feel subhuman.
That being said schools shouldn't feel like prison. Students shouldn't feel like their privacy and agency is forfeit. They should not feel subhuman.
The UK's "Prevent" scheme is a good example of why school surveillance is a bad thing. It was setup to try and prevent religious radicalization, specifically Islamic. All it did was make Muslim student feel constantly spied upon and afraid to express opinions, lest they and their families find themselves under investigation... But then it spread beyond religion to includes political issues, for example stopping a 14 year old boy from helping out at anti-fracking protests. Truly Orwellian stuff.
As an aside my brother-in-law has been battling his childrens school for several years because he refuses to allow their school issued laptops to connect to his home network. The laptops use a proprietary WiFi setup dialog that states the network password will be saved to the cloud with no option to opt out. The school doesn't understand why he would be concerned with that.
As an aside my brother-in-law has been battling his childrens school for several years because he refuses to allow their school issued laptops to connect to his home network. The laptops use a proprietary WiFi setup dialog that states the network password will be saved to the cloud with no option to opt out. The school doesn't understand why he would be concerned with that.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel...
As important as privacy is, the longer-term issue is values slowly devolving as each generation sees something as normal. Just as, if we don't resist the pressures, these children will grow up to consider this article's situation as normal and accept yet more encroachment, we adults accept what would repulse previous generations.
The environment, for example, though I could pick obesity, teaching to the test, or any number of other examples. The "Crying Indian" public service announcements from the 70s https://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/remember-single-tear-anti-... reveal that the amount of plastic and waste that we once considered a crying shame, we produce monthly today, and is increasing.
We consider pollution normal that our ancestors cried at. Remember the first time you saw a picture of a beach covered in plastic junk? Now there are millions of such images. How many of us have plastic bottles next to our computers despite a tap giving healthier water a few steps away? How many of us ordered junk we knew we'd throw away manufactured twelve time zones away, knowing the pollution it would cause, but everyone else does it and that's just the way things are now?
We used to consider splitting atoms a crazy alternative to lower population growth. Now, especially in this community, people want more of it. Do you consider nuclear energy a solution instead of a symptom of deeper problems? Think of it from the perspective of the past, when there was more natural abundance per person. At the same time, think of how future generations may value greater encroachments into their freedom and privacy that we would consider unacceptable today.
The top post on this thread starts, "THIS IS NOT OKAY." How much that we consider okay today would past generations have judged "NOT OKAY"? If we would want future generations to claw back to now if these trends continued, should we claw back to a less-polluted world? To a more fit world? To an educational system that helps mature children into responsible, capable adults, not excellent sheep?
The environment, for example, though I could pick obesity, teaching to the test, or any number of other examples. The "Crying Indian" public service announcements from the 70s https://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/remember-single-tear-anti-... reveal that the amount of plastic and waste that we once considered a crying shame, we produce monthly today, and is increasing.
We consider pollution normal that our ancestors cried at. Remember the first time you saw a picture of a beach covered in plastic junk? Now there are millions of such images. How many of us have plastic bottles next to our computers despite a tap giving healthier water a few steps away? How many of us ordered junk we knew we'd throw away manufactured twelve time zones away, knowing the pollution it would cause, but everyone else does it and that's just the way things are now?
We used to consider splitting atoms a crazy alternative to lower population growth. Now, especially in this community, people want more of it. Do you consider nuclear energy a solution instead of a symptom of deeper problems? Think of it from the perspective of the past, when there was more natural abundance per person. At the same time, think of how future generations may value greater encroachments into their freedom and privacy that we would consider unacceptable today.
The top post on this thread starts, "THIS IS NOT OKAY." How much that we consider okay today would past generations have judged "NOT OKAY"? If we would want future generations to claw back to now if these trends continued, should we claw back to a less-polluted world? To a more fit world? To an educational system that helps mature children into responsible, capable adults, not excellent sheep?
Interesting that this is the trade off:
Gun rights at the expense of privacy rights
Gun rights at the expense of privacy rights
[deleted]
If you really want to dig deep into the pervasive surveillance of young children research companies like https://www.bark.us/schools . They fear monger parents with suicide prevention and child porn to fully monitor all digital activity of students. This is a cultural regression for our children.
Should schools be monitoring students' communications?
No, but these are important lessons for kids to learn.
1. Don't trust somebody else's device, such as a school- or work-issued device.
2. Learn to use social media responsibly. Your public social media output is.... public. Don't put things on social media if you don't want them potentially used against you.
No, but these are important lessons for kids to learn.
1. Don't trust somebody else's device, such as a school- or work-issued device.
2. Learn to use social media responsibly. Your public social media output is.... public. Don't put things on social media if you don't want them potentially used against you.
https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die....
Does the news reflect what we die from? No
Death from terrorism is 4000X over represented in the news
Death from terrorism is 4000X over represented in the news
Cory Doctorow had a book about this over a decade ago (2008). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel...
Prescient.
Prescient.
Parents seem clueless that they are raising a generation of sheep when it come to government (and corps) invading their privacy. It really is a shame that parents teach them to be suspicious of anyone with power to force them to do anything.
How this kids, when they arrive to adulthood, will be able to stand for their rights? They are tough to, with the collaboration of their parents to give them away, and to see it as a necessary evil.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're creating psych profiles of these students, and at some point the data will be sold (or "shared"), as always.
My middle school (late 90s) in Savannah, GA required clear backpacks though I think the main concern was students concealing drugs.
An industry created on the basis of fear. We all know how that panned out after 9/11.
When will this country start addressing the root cause?
When will this country start addressing the root cause?
Sounds more like a prison than a school.
Of course they think that, they’re still kids. Who’s going to protect them from surveillance?
IMO this is way over the top - and it’s conditioning future generations to accept this level of surveillance as adults.