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Teachers 'Unwittingly' Spying On School Children With Surveillance Software (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A thousand schools across the UK are monitoring children's classroom activities through surveillance software, according to a new report released by privacy advocate group Big Brother Watch. The paper claims that schools have spent an estimated 2.5 million pound ($3.1 million USD) on monitoring solutions to keep an eye on pupils. The technology, known as 'Classroom Management Software', tracks computer usage, including pupil internet activity, browser history, and even keyboard strokes. The report found that 70% of secondary schools (PDF) in Britain have installed monitoring systems, across more than 800,000 school-owned devices and near to 1,500 privately-owned devices.
If these are school-owned computers, on school property, then I don;thave much of a problem with this... privately owned devices and/or devicesa the students take home, not as much so
How is it unwitting if they spend $3.1 millions on it?
It's like saying I got unwittingly stoned after ingesting these drugs...
Isn't "monitoring children's classroom activities" pretty much number one on a teacher's list of responsibilities?
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Did anyone at all stop to think at the reasons why software and computer companies are so eager to get their software and hardware in the classrooms and in the backpacks of our children? It certainly does not appear to be to help the children, though that is the reason they hide behind.
At a minimum, every school and every parent should ask their technology vendors what information is being harvested from the children, and with whom is it shared?
It appears that these companies are building databases on our children for unspecified use and with our passive cooperation.
My school has used software like this in the past and the program we used didn't keep a log of anything. It was just to see in real-time what was happening on each student's computer. You could freeze the machines if you needed to get the attention of the class or broadcast the teacher's computer to the kids' machines. Software like this is almost essential for managing a computer class, but I would be wary if there was software that actually collected data, but that hasn't been the case in my experience.
Sigh.
I work in schools, in the UK.
It is THE LAW that we must ensure that the children's devices do not expose them and are managed and under school control. Hence we install monitoring software.
We are required, by child protection laws, by e-safety regulations, by basic child management, and by parental demand, to watch what they are doing and intercept what we can.
And, from experience, even when we do, kids will load up porn sites (Filters? We have multiple layers. Kids are good at getting round them) and try to print them out before the IT guys can stop it, kids will watch movie trailers not suitable for their age, kids will try to get on their home email or some third-party message service so they can chat across the classrooms (exposing themselves to the possibility of strangers contacting them, which is the first stage of grooming).
Bitch about it all you want, the law says we have to protect them in this way and any school that doesn't will fail inspection, be outed by parents and be on the news by lunchtime when a child just walks past their management, filters or settings.
And in the days of BYOD and 1:1 devices, that means we also install settings, management profiles and enforce proxy/filter settings on device that they might well take home. Generally, parents will DEMAND that. Or else they are just being given a computer that - at home - lets their little darlings walk past their NetNanny or equivalent.
And it's parents demanding the devices in the first place. Certainly not the school IT departments!
Before you leap on the privacy shite, consider the background. Schools have ZERO choice in this. Failing to implement such measures means they will be taken to court. Not providing devices or BYOD means they are made to feel like the dinosaurs of education and parents run away from them. In some cases, such devices are basically DEMANDED.
Feel like that leaves you between a rock and a hard place? Welcome to my life.
I've worked in UK schools all my life as the IT guy. State, private, primary, secondary and above. We have no choice. Even data protection means we need to secure, manage and lock down the children's machines so that their data doesn't leak to third-parties (like browser extensions and shite like other front-page stories at the moment) - because THAT'S breaking the law as well, unless they have an EU-compatible Data Protection policy.
Before you assume evil on behalf on the schools, imagine the alternative - schools without tech competing with schools with tech, or schools with no e-Safety of child protection on their machines.
We teach our pupils to treat the school iPad like an exercise book. Use it for work. Configure it for your work. Don't play games on it. Don't doodle on it. Only use it in lessons when your teacher asks you to. Take it home and do your homework on it if you like/need to. But spying on the kids via it? No. Because it should be used for school work only. Worried about the school IT guy looking at what your child searches for? You have bigger problems, such as what they are doing to your child in school, with access to their school email, web history, etc. And if you're that worried, turn the device off when at home.
But don't come out guns blazing thinking that child privacy is the biggest issue at play here. It's not. It's important - ESPECIALLY important. But the other things that it dictates (i.e. others not seeing that information that the school already can get a myriad of ways) are infinitely more important.
School: You can't do what you want on school computers. we have surveillance software too.
Kids: Challenge Accepted!
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