Comment by astrobe_
1 day ago
I wonder, if the device is equipped with a microphone and/or a webcam, does it mean that the school has the right to remotely activate them for "monitoring" purposes? It not too far from what they did when the monitoring software sent the screenshots of an email that never existed.
And what if he joked about stabbing his girlfriend/boyfriend? Would the school report him to the police? What the police would do in this case?
This is a substantially more serious scenario now that transcribing and analyzing audio / video content is so much faster & cheaper today. Previously some freak had to watch or listen to everything in nearly 1:1 time to eavesdrop.
I have worked extensively with this technology and have witnessed many of its pros and cons firsthand. I have seen it misused, but I have also observed it saving students' lives and preventing mass violence events.
A major point to consider in the public conversation is what happens after a tragic event occurs. The school district is often called out for ignoring the warning signs, not paying attention to things that could have prevented the event, etc. So the other side of abolishing this technology is that school districts no longer have those tools and public expectations should be adjusted accordingly. What really happens is that public opinion ebbs and flows between support and opposition, depending on what tragedies have happened near term.
The policy and legal frameworks used by US schools clearly state that school district staff are not allowed to remotely activate the microphone or camera on a student's device.
There's also legal precedence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School...
When the Robbins case occurred, school districts everywhere took notice. In the organizations I've worked with since then, we no longer activate the microphone or webcam, regardless of the Chromebook's location. However, I can't speak for every school district, whose morals and ethics may vary greatly.
> It not too far from what they did when the monitoring software sent the screenshots of an email that never existed.
It did exist but it wasn't never sent. The software runs as an agent on the student device and inspects the DOM tree for text phrases it considers alert-worthy: self-harm, threats, drug use, etc.
> And what if he joked about stabbing his girlfriend/boyfriend? Would the school report him to the police? What the police would do in this case?
This entirely depends on the school and police personalities involved, but the answer is "possibly" or "probably", depending on the jurisidiction.
Regardless of the outcome, I think what's really important include the following:
- There ARE bad actors employed in every school district! Many of them would love to spy on students, collect naked photos and share them.
- School districts need STRICT AND ENFORCED use policy and minimal "need to know" access for TRAINED district staff. No hand slaps. Termination of employment, and legal and criminal consequences are in order.
- Auditing flipped on for everything possible (for CYA, if anything). If school staff flips on a webcam, that should be logged somewhere that cannot be scrubbed. In the case of a webcam activation, I'd have it auto-notify key personnel and probably legal. Those audit logs should be reviewed often by multiple auditors -- preferable a third party. Audit events should be backed by extensive documentation, such as a help desk ticket, if anything.
- If possible, students should obscure the webcam when not in use to protect themselves. If feasible, I also suggest they get a cheap dummy mic off of Amazon and keep that plugged in.
If this type of product survives litigation, we need to move toward assurances of privacy (eg. verifiable Private Cloud Compute model), so this doesn't turn into another Flock situation where certain government entities may have a global/national single-pane-of-glass.
I almost said "on-premises" there, but that would be a disaster because school districts don't patch their stuff.
> but I've also seen it save students' lives and stop mass violence events.
The saving lives thing is always the excuse for total surveillance. Trading away your freedom for security gets you neither.
Touche. I get that and agree. It's certainly a polarizing conversation.
I'm hoping the conversation and courts arrive at definitive guidance and regulations that preserves freedom, doesn't add to the surveillance state and provides some kind of answer to the half or more than half of the population that expects school districts to surveil everything kids do on their devices (self-harm, harm, bullying, etc).
It's a really weird experience to hear the same powerful people argue both sides. How do you expect us to do one without the other?
And again, it's... safe to assume there are a lot of bad actors in education where enforced safeguards are needed.
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It also relies on knowledge of a counterfactual situation. Was the guy arrested for a threat genuinely going to hurt people, or was it a dumb joke that was taken seriously by somebody snooping in a conversation they lacked the context to even understand?
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Thanks for your answer. The fact that the legal framework you suggest aimed at preventing abuse doesn't exist already is terrifying, when you think about it.
The situation is also deeply unfair: wealthy students can keep the device provided by the school in a box and use their own instead, while less wealthy students will have to use the school's device and be spied on. "But that's actually a good thing," some might say, "it's always the poor who cause troubles."
IMO, this spyware shouldn't have been there in the first place, even if it means that in some cases it could have prevented yet-another shooting, or suicide, or drug abuse. The school should have the right to inspect the device anytime (when at school, not remotely) to make sure it is not being misused, and nothing more.
More surveillance won't make those problems disappear - actually quite the opposite I believe; because learning that your classmate has been suspended because he said the wrong words when talking to himself but some forgotten microphone caught them nevertheless is really stressing or depressing, depending on your personality.
I just don't see how the pros out-weight the cons here. Even if the laws and policies were well written, enforcement seems impossible. As you've said, there are going to bad actors sprinkled throughout any of these systems (and in a big enough system, this will always be the case). This power, in my opinion, is simply too great to be allowed. It will be abused. A lot.