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Orange County Public Schools To Monitor Students On Social Media

Posted by timothy on from the well-that's-air-tight dept.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Orange County, Florida, is undertaking a sweeping effort to snoop on the social media communications of the county's public school students and staff, for the nebulous task of "[ensuring] safe school operations," and say they will use the software (at a license cost of about $13,000 per year) "to conduct routine monitoring for purposes of prevention or early intervention of potential issues where students or staff could be at risk to themselves or to others." The software they're using is from Snaptrends, which offers "location-based social media discovery." According to one of the comments attached to the linked story, there are monthly fees, in addition to the annual licensing cost.

6 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Private Profiles by D.McG. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone with a clue makes their profile private such that only friends may see their posts. Most children are told explicitly to do this by parents because of creepy stalkers. These clowns are actually receiving/spending tax payer's money to stalk. Illegal on so many levels.

    1. Re:Private Profiles by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bah! It's not serious until you can stash a whole bag of Cheetos in it... and if you can do it without taking them out of the bag you are an honorary member of ZZ Top!

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    2. Re:Private Profiles by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Absolutely. Still, this will teach students a valuable life lesson. Prospective employers are probably going to pull the same sort of nonsense, so they had better start learning to watch what they say in public right now.

      Also... I'm obviously building the wrong type of software. I'd love to be able to charge $13K plus monthly usage fees for scanning targeted people on Facebook, Twitter, and a few other services for scary keywords and phrases.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  2. if you dont want people by ganjadude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if you dont want people to know what you are doing.... dont post it online for the world to see! is it really that hard???

    My question is where is the money coming from to pay for this? i want my teachers teaching, not spying

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  3. Finally by houghi · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am so glad they finally are doing what everybody is asking for. We hear a lot of complaining that all schools do is learn people to take tests. And now finally we prepare students for the real world.
    . . . . . . . . .

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  4. The key assumption are by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. They can accurately identify students and staff. Since no one has ever created a fake social media account that shouldn't be hard. Just require everyone to provide a list of all their accounts. No one would object to that, correct?

    2. Software can accurately parse potential threat from random uses of keywords and not require excessive reviews of material that is innocuous.

    3. No one would create fake accounts to cause #2 to occur.

    4. No one will object nor have the cash to hire a lawyer if the school demands account information under threat of punishment.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.