Slashdot Mirror
UK Schools Consider Searching Pupils' Smartphones
An anonymous reader writes "What right to privacy do school pupils have on their mobile phones? UK education officials are considering ways to clamp down on cyber-bullying and classroom disruption by allowing teachers to search and delete content from student handsets if it is deemed unsuitable. However, questions remain whether such a move would give teachers too much power and infringe on student rights."
The seeds of yet another encroachment on human rights by the UK
On the one hand, a proposal to allow teachers to search smartphones is an expansion of the invasive-yet-dubiously-competent surveillance state. Therefore, our limey friends on airstrip one have an obligation to adopt it, it's in their national character or something.
On the other hand, such a proposal will, almost certainly, provide teachers with a supply of kiddie porn, thus abetting the paedophile menace, perhaps the only thing that your average Daily Mail reader fears and loathes more than immigrants on the dole...
How will they decide this one?
No phones. Period.
Games used to have a "boss key" so you could bring up a spreadsheet or something whenever your boss walked by so it looked like you were working.
I see no reason smartphones couldn't have a program that had similar functionality for when a teacher walked by.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Simple solution. "Teacher, I forgot my password. Sorry!".
I'm sure there'll be plenty of apologists here who will say
1. "I'm old and I don't like that young people have better times ahead of them so I am happy to hear about them being clamped down in some way."
2. the legal apologist who says if the law allows/denies it, it must be ok/not ok. who cares that we're discussing, at least obliquely, the effects of this scenario that it creates.
3. "when I was a kid" douchebags.
4. the wannabe tyrant who props up his insecurities by always siding with big brother tyrants.
How about just throwing out the kids who are disruptive in class? this way no property has to be ruined, no lawsuits filed, and the kids who want to be there to learn (or at least graduate) can do so. if it's the kind of thing where the kid's sitting there quietly with headphones on, leave him alone.. he's not bothering anyone else. the only reason teachers throw these kinds of 'offenders' out is because of their insecure feelings of being 'dissed.' Really, it's not necessary because the kid will fail the class...or pass it because he already knew the material. Remind him that paying attention is important and he'll need to take off the 'phones to do that. if he says 'no' just say 'remember there's a test next week, I hope you'll be prepared.' and leave it at that. if the kid keeps forgetting to turn off his cell phone ringer, then throw him out of the class until he starts remembering. none of this requires a panopticonic policy. of course such policies have a benefit for the emotional security challenged people out there who are more often than not in-charge.
The 'cyber bullying 'excuse for this new 'power' is just another form of 'for the children.' searching/confiscating phones and deleting files on them is not going to stop bullying.. in fact, all this will do is enable yet another way for faculty to bully students.
Until somebody shoves a camera under the cubicle wall and takes a picture of your son or daughter with their pants down. Then when the other students say "but I don't have a picture, do you have a picture?" and the teacher is powerless to do anything, the photo will be recirculated for years.
Crimes take place in schools which would never be tolerated in the outside world.
NYC department of education found an ultimate solution. All electronic gadgets sans HP calculators are banned in the public schools.
If you bring it to school then the school can impose rules on how you use it. Don't bring it to school if you don't like it. You might as well complain about having to get vaccinated or having to wear pants or leaving your bong at home.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Is this not why people have a pin on their phone? Oh wait next they are going to be slapping little bobby in jail for not giving up his password under the terrorism act
Actually .... you would have your sig 210 destroyed in 1997 :)
What kind of fucked up "school" has cubicles? That's a great way to foster teamwork...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If, when I and my children lived in the UK, a teacher had tried to do this I would have sued s/his ass off.
What's a "shis"?
Now I would insert the barrel of my SIG 210 up their left nostril and politely ask them NOT to do it again.
Overreact much? Funny, I thought the barrel of the SIG P210 was far larger than any nostril, well, except maybe this guy's: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article112380.ece
What do those people think they are?
Educators of children? Hopefully they're doing a better job than those that educated you, judging from your entertaining comment history. A connoisseur of transsexuals, are you? Italy has "some of the most passable/beautiful TS outside asia". Awesome. Maybe you could publish a field guide to the world's she-males.
"Headmaster, Headmaster . . . Nelson, minor, has twitter up his shitter!"
Shamelessly stolen from Viz.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Absolutely not. Kids are minors, and therefore enjoy greater protection from the law, not less. They still retain basic human rights and many civil liberties. You cannot force a child to work commercially for you for free. You cannot compel a child to testify against themselves. The police may not search children without a warrant. The only reason schools enjoy greater control over their students is by arguing "in loco parentis," that they are literally acting as the child's parent while the mother and father are absent. Even under this doctrine, there are limits. You cannot compel a child to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance. The school may not interfere with a child's practice of religion.
This is all how it should be.
My problem is with the implication of your post. Kids are not adults, so they have no human rights or civil liberties, so we can do what we want to them. The Great State of Texas has been a prime example of this, Kids get investigated as children with no human rights, and then tried as adults with no protections from the law.
And honestly, speaking as a teacher, demanding to see the notebook was a rookie mistake. The problem with you and your friends was that you weren't focused on the lesson. Your teacher should have put you back on task, but instead chose to make this a personal issue between you. Your teacher sacrificed the strong position of "You're not learning the lesson" for the weak position of "You're hurting my feelings."
Look at it this way. Do you remember what you were supposed to be learning that day?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
If, when I and my children lived in the UK, a teacher had tried to do this I would have sued s/his ass off.
Under what law?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
"questions remain whether such a move would give teachers too much power and infringe on student rights."
That's like saying "questions remain whether Hitler was a bad guy" or "questions remain whether giving the police the authority to search houses without a warrant would give the police too much power".
There's isn't any question here. Of course allowing teachers to search and delete whatever they want from a student's cell phone is an abuse of power. Just like allowing teachers to search and erase content from a student's notebook or to take a student's books and burn them.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
A few of the problems is smart phones are more like computers. you can hide files, you can encrypt files, etc. Sorry I don't trust teachers to know every phone OS and os hack (kids love hacks) on every new phone coming out every 6 months. I think they should just take them away for the day on first offense. Offense meaning being seen. Second offense they should be banned from having them on their person
Who do you think you are using deadly force willy-nilly?
You're the sort that gives CCP holders a bad reputation.
How about all the school teachers and admin folk just worry about TEACHING? The only difference between this search & delete against the students' will and an actual cyberbully is that you're doing it there and in person and telling them they have no choice. Way to go rolemodels!
This is absolutely a violation of the rights of the students. It is not a question, it is absolute.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
"or are you going to teach the little twerp to do what he's told for his own good?"
Thanks for that post. Now I've got Pink Floyd's "The Wall" fighting with Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs" for space on the constant loop in my head.
"It puts the lotion on itself or it gets the hose again YOU! YES YOU! STAND STILL WHILE YOU'RE HIT!"
I really, really hope you're not a parent.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I had a disk I took to class searched once. I didn't mind. You know why? There was nothing counter to school policy on the disk.
In general, I make sure I have nothing offensive on my person whenever I go out. What if the phone just slipped out of the student's pocket? To identify the owner of the phone, someone would have to search it anyway. My point is keep private things in private. If I go to a police station while waving a knife around and get arrested, I'm not going to claim that they violated my privacy by looking at me.
If no one had anything against school rules on their phones, then they wouldn't have to implement such a policy.
You might as well complain about having to get vaccinated or having to wear pants or leaving your bong at home.
Thank God they didn't have these crazy rules back in my day: I'd have never finished college.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If they don't have any rights then they have no human rights. If they don't have human rights then they aren't human
I submit that kids are clearly not human
Someone mentioned in loco parentis, the idea that the school can do a lot of things because they are the de facto parents of the kid while at school. So, I would not be very surprised at all to see more of this in the future. Schools will confiscate phones (or tablets) under the guise of finding who cheated on the test, or who is dealing drugs, or sexting. Much like the cops searching your phone (without a warrant) when you are arrested, schools in the UK and the US will probably start doing this much more frequently.
So what's the lesson? Encryption. Password protect your data, and have remote wipe capability, etc. It's all been discussed to death here already.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
How can anyone in their right mind say that this is a good idea? Kick out the disruptive kids. If their phone rings, its a disruption. The school has no right to go through a students phone just because it's in the students possession. The "kids aren't adults" comment: Remind me how kids aren't people? The government isn't allowed to search your shit without a warrant or probable cause, why would a school have more freedom to do so? Removing phones from schools isn't the solution either. Please stop saying "humans evolved just fine without them." Yeah, we evolved without them, but we also evolved without vaccines, health care, school, etc. That isn't any justification not to have them. Just ask students to turn their phones off, and if the teacher catches them with it out, it is placed on the teachers desk until the end of the class. Multiple violations will result in it being confiscated for the entire day. "If no one had anything against school rules on their phones, then they wouldn't have to implement such a policy." Please. Just because you shouldn't have anything against school policy on your phone doesn't mean they should be able to search it. Who wants to have all their private emails and conversations read, as well as pictures and online profiles that the teacher wouldn't have access to otherwise. As I have said before on here, you all need to read 1984. It's becoming more and more relevant...
I won't touch the debate on students' rights or cell phone policies, but it seems odd that teachers would be allowed to delete items. It puts them in a very precarious position, in a couple of ways.
Basically, if something is offensive enough to be deleted, it should be instead preserved as evidence for disciplinary action. Once the evidence is deleted it's going to be very difficult to sanction the child at all and I can just imagine parents' exasperation when informed. How can they yell at their kid about something when the only "proof" was supposedly deleted?
And if a picture or text message wasn't merely offensive but was evidence of an illegal act, the teacher will have committed destruction of evidence. And what if the teacher finds pictures of 12 year old students not fully clothed? Viewing stuff like that in class is likely to be a termination offence. Displaying it to other children could conceivably lead to a criminal conviction.
Also, it seems naive to pretend that students won't adapt by just syncing/backing up their phones more often or downloading the offensive content again. And what if the offensive content was a web page? They can just bring it up again any time they want.
There is a difference between imposing rules on how it's used (e.g. not permitting it to be on during the class), and forcibly gaining access to private content stored on said phone.
they're loco
Nullius in verba
If it's OK to sift through a kid's backpack or notebook, then the same circumstances should allow a teacher to go through the kid's cellphone.
Yes, today's cell phones (and laptops) can hold a lot more data than the (paper) notebooks of the '80s, but I find it hard to justify giving the electronic equivalents more protection than their low-tech predecessors. At some point, you have to draw a line (in both directions).
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
This is always the same goddamned discussion. "Teachers should be doing their jobs! If they can't bring out the best in every single student, they're incompetent!" "Let students be responsible for their own performance! That's what I always wanted, so that must be the best solution!"
Listen. Many people assume that each student essentially acts as an isolated island. This is not always true.
A classroom is not only thirty (or whatever number) of individual students. A classroom is also its atmosphere and its dynamic. If you let one kid text in class, even if he knows the material, you've suddenly lost your justification to prevent other kids from doing the same. This will slowly poison the whole class to the level of the most common denominator. It's a matter of fairness. The rule has to be the same, or very similar, for everyone.
I'm sorry but ... WHY THE FUCK DO THEY NEED PHONES AT SCHOOL?
Ban the devices. No one needs them, the school certainly has a phone for emergency phone calls if need be.
Theres no reason a kid needs to have a phone in class.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
That's right. At my kids' school all phones are handed over at the start of day, and held by the teacher until the end of the school day. Everyone gets their phone back, I can txt my boys and they'll get the txt after school without interrupting class. The system works pretty well from what I can see.
Not all states have the family business exemption, as this Hartford pizzeria found out. If you're "managing" your kid's acting career, you can't touch a dime of their money under the Coogan Act. Even in states with family business exemptions, if CPS thinks it's a better deal for you than the kid, you'll end up paying more in lawyers than you saved by not hiring a grown-up.
I sympathize. I had my hopes cruelly dashed too when I found out my "adopt a thousand orphans/open a string of car washes" dream wouldn't work.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
And you don't have any problems. Also, password protect it. Any "school" official wants to look at MY phone, isn't going to get access to it.
When I was a kid / teen, everybody knew who the bullies were, except the teachers. I never understood why they couldn't see it and act on it. Are bullies more subtle than I remember or do teacher avoid the issue by turning a blind eye ? If they spanked a bully once in a while, there wouldn't be any. I know, my bullying for being a geek stopped for good the day I hit back. If only I'd done that a decade earlier...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
What will happen? Nothing. With the average amount of smartphones, and the fact that teachers are by no means more technically able than their pupils, it will mean that teachers will become the laughing stock of bullies, more than they were ever. Oh, you want to search my phone, teacher? Here! The video where I kicked the shit out of the geek is safe on the memory card in my pocket.
The problem isn't that teachers can't see that someone gets beaten up. The problem is that the teacher gets into trouble when he interferes. How many teachers are actually stupid enough to get into one such fight and risk being accused of beating a pupil because the only way to get the bully to stop was to grab him and drag him off?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's take away their privacy when they are kids, so they will be accustomed to a life without it when they are adults.
"But they can't make a rule that allows teachers to take away cell phones forever or damage them as a punishment. That would be illegal."
actually ive heard someone make that argument allowing damage(i think from magnets), from a student who is older then me, repeating some lies from a teacher(and confirmed by others); lucky for that teacher i didnt get him OR ELSE I WOULD ARGUE, IGNORE, HELP OTHERS CHEAT etc.all though his class but show up everyday getting a nice shiny A fair and square, insulting him daily, writing letters to whoever in change, maybe add a nice touch with picket signs every week or something
warning pointless sig
If, when I and my children lived in the UK, a teacher had tried to do this I would have sued s/his ass off.
Under what law?
Article 8, ECHR:
Note that while (2) allows the government to legislate away parts of the right described, they have not done so for this situation, so it stands without exception in this case.
This is just about generating a story that Daily Mail readers will lap up - unruly kids brought to heel by stern authoritarian teachers. In practice it would be so difficult, physically and technically, to search an unwilling student's phone that no-one will bother. People have mentioned home school contracts as if they would legitimise this. These 'contracts' have no legal standing because they don't involve a consideration, ie the school undertakes to provide nothing on the basis of the contract that it would not have to do anyway.
Not all kids use their cellphones for nefarious purposes...the best approach to this is very simple: just punish those kids that use their cellphones in the wrong way.
Forbidding all cell phones just because there might be an abuse sometime in the future is a non-democratic act. In fact, it's totally fascist.
Fuck off, children managed to get to school and back before they invented mobile phones. If your kid is in trouble h/she can always ask a responsible adult (e.g.bus driver if they're on a bus) to contact you. If there's an accident, your kid should have a name and contact number on them anyway if you're letting them out alone so the police/ambulance can ring you.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Erm... I think we have a language misunderstanding :)
Over here, "cubicles" mean office cubicles, only. The bathroom "sub rooms" we call stalls.
Apologies for the confusion.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
> I would insert the barrel of my SIG 210 up their left nostril and politely ask them NOT to do it again.
And you would go to jail for it and a good thing also.
Protecting yourself, your family or total strangers is fine. Pulling a gun unless you are in a life-threatening situation is not.
Now go rub manly oil on your biceps or whatever it is you like to do while not bi-winning around the clock.
The same law that let him pull a gun on the teacher without police taking care.
Fuck you.
You are part of the problem, not the solution.
What if your HP calculator is just an app on your iOS device?
Nie jestem polakiem, tylko mieszkalem w polsce za dziesiecio letcie.
Reasoning.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.