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Education Privacy

Newspaper Decries Fearmongering of the 'Student Surveillance Industry' (thegazette.com) 79

Posted by EditorDavid from the the-kids-are-alright dept.
Iowa City's school board heard presentations from "two companies pitching digital surveillance services," complains a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette, expressing concerns about their offers to "track students' digital lives and flag potential threats for in-house analysts and school officials to review." The student surveillance industry is overrun with buzz words, misinformation and fearmongering. Digital citizenship. Crowd-sourcing. Machine-learning algorithm. Those are warm and fuzzy phrases meant to make us feel secure in the arms of corporate tech.

Discussing an out-of-state case where a student allegedly sought to join ISIS, a Securly company representative at the school board meeting said, "There are plenty of kids like (him) walking around every school in every district in this country who need help." Kids in every school district who are trying to join international terrorist networks? I doubt that....

A parent testimonial from Gaggle aptly sums up the student surveillance philosophy: "If it's going to protect my child or save my child, I don't care how you get the information, just get it." I worry young people will heed that message -- safety at any cost, privacy be damned. They will grow up to accept constant government surveillance in a world where everything they do is recorded. It's all they've ever known, and they won't think to question it.
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Newspaper Decries Fearmongering of the 'Student Surveillance Industry' More

Newspaper Decries Fearmongering of the 'Student Surveillance Industry'

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  • 20 years too late. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ludux ( 6308946 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @03:36AM (#59786384)
    Social media happened, we're well past the point of no return. I agree with the sentiment, but if you want to cut down our developing surveillance society you've got to do it for everyone, not just students. That means also employers, employees, spouses, and especially things like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, etc etc etc ad infinitum ad nauseum. Stopping creepy private companies from spying on your children while they're at school is a good and noble tiny step, but also look to yourself and how you use the internet and how you teach them. It's just as worthwhile to raise red flags about how creepy companies are tracking your children (and yourself) outside of school, at every stage and in every facet of your lives. Is privacy even possible in any meaningful way on the modern internet or in modern life, without resorting to using things like Tor and only ever using cash?

    • Re:20 years too late. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @04:08AM (#59786440) Journal
      I use cash everywhere I possibly can. Sadly the decline of retail stores means there's things I can't even get unless I order them. Totally sucks and I hate it. The only saving grace for me in that is there aren't tons of things I want or need.
      For the moment at least. so-called 'social media' is optional. You aren't required to be on Facebook, Twitter, or anything else. I'm not. You probably aren't either. Forbid your kids from using it if they're under 18, and educate them as to why it's a trap, assuming they even want social media at all.
      Don't give your money to companies that do evil things, and encourage your elected representatives to promote the protection of people's privacy.
      Don't buy so-called 'smart speakers' for your home, or 'smart TVs', or any of that crap that surveils you.
      Don't own a smartphone or give smartphones to your kids. Why do they even need a phone? If they really need one they get a cheap plastic dumbphone with no internet connectivity, just voice and texts. Same goes for you and your wife. If you don't personally need a cellphone at all get POTS wired service at your house and call it good.
      Lots of things you can do to fight back against invasion of your and your familys' privacy, you just have to look for them, and not be sheep/lemmings. Yes, they're all 'inconvenient', but remember we all used to live without them and got along just fine.

      • For the moment at least. so-called 'social media' is optional. You aren't required to be on Facebook, Twitter, or anything else. I'm not. You probably aren't either.

        It doesn't work that way, kids have a thing called "peer pressure".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DogDude ( 805747 )
          It doesn't work that way, kids have a thing called "peer pressure".

          Peer pressure doesn't require that anybody do anything. That's what peer pressure is. They may get PRESSURE from their peers to do stuff, but that doesn't mean it's REQUIRED by anybody. Are kids also REQUIRED to engage in early sex and drinking because of peer pressure?

          • We had an intern for a bit here last year. He said he hates all social media, but has to use it.

            "Who says you have to use it?"

            "Society."

            And he was deadly serious. A lengthy discussion lead me to conclude that our younger folks sincerely and honestly believe you will be completely removed from society if you don't stay up to date with your social media. You'll be a complete outcast. A hermit.

            I'm not sure how you go up against that type of mentality with any sort of argument that will break through.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

          For the moment at least. so-called 'social media' is optional. You aren't required to be on Facebook, Twitter, or anything else. I'm not. You probably aren't either.

          It doesn't work that way, kids have a thing called "peer pressure".

          I thought peer pressure was when a boat ran into a dock.

        • It doesn't work that way, kids have a thing called "peer pressure".

          Learning to ignore peer pressure and think for yourself is about the most important lesson you can teach your kids. As my dad used to say to me when I was a kid and I would try to excuse something stupid by saying that "everyone else did it": "Would you leap off a cliff if everyone else was doing that too?"

          Teaching your kids to watch the lemmings instead of blindly being one is important.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I use cash everywhere I possibly can. Sadly the decline of retail stores means there's things I can't even get unless I order them. Totally sucks and I hate it. The only saving grace for me in that is there aren't tons of things I want or need.

        You can use cash online. They call them Visa Gift Cards. They're expensive, but they're basically a gift card that's spendable anywhere that takes Visa. (Equivalents exist for MasterCard too).

        They are somewhat expensive and lack protections (your account can be draine

        • Nice. In order to avoid fraud you yourself become a fraudster and feed your neighbor's info to the hucksters.

        • Unfortunately, there are many things you can't buy using one of these pre-paid gift cards. For most cards, any transaction flagged as "recurring" will be declined. Most times, merchants don't flag transactions as recurring, as that is intended for situations, like subscriptions, that trigger automatic, periodic payments. However, some merchants do flag all their transactions as recurring, even for clearly one-time purchases. Having received these Visa/MasterCard gift cards - as gifts (usually from my employ

        • Yeah sure but what you suggest raises red flags all over the place because it makes it look like YOU are committing fraud and might end up with local LEOs or FBI on your doorstep wondering what the hell you're up to, which is precisely the kind of attention I want to avoid.

        • You can use cash online. They call them Visa Gift Cards.

          Yes, but if you are buying physical goods, you have to get them shipped to you and so you no longer have anonymity. If you walk into a brick and mortar store and pay cash, they don't know who you are (at least until facial recognition technology becomes ubiquitous).

        • What's going on here?
          A dozen posts and every one is thoughtful and informative.
          I am still on /.?

      • If they really need one they get a cheap plastic dumbphone with no internet connectivity, just voice and texts.

        Unfortunately, even dumb phones are surveillance devices. They are always exchanging control messages with the cell towers. Text messages were implemented as a "bonus payload" for control messages. What other "bonus paylaods" are there?

        Also, just because a phone doesn't allow for user installed apps (whether from the app store or not), doesn't mean it's not a "smart phone". For example, the Alcatel Flip-It phone looks like an style, dumb, flip phone, but it runs KaiOS, a fork of the (now defunct) FireFoxOS.

        • Leave off with the FUD spreading.
          I can turn off, or take the battery out of, the $40 plastic phone I use. Try tracking that when there's no battery in it. Also I physically disabled any GPS in it by identifying the GPS antenna structure on the main PCB and shorting it to ground. Most people can't do that but I can. You can still take the battery out and it's not trackable anymore. Try that with your $1000 'smartphone'. Oh that's right you can't.
    • Just wait till you find out what Passive Radar AKA CELLDAR is. Just wait till you find out how long its been used to surveil you. The US Air Force seal is a Radio Tower. Or in Engliptian (Egyptian but for Englishmen) the Ra-Deus tower is A Djet (Digit) Tower, and it has the all-seeing eye of Wejad (djet), The Eye of Horus, Mon-Eye, that One-Eye on US Money. Radar is Dark Ra, RADARk, the k is silent like in Knight. This is a secret the secret societies keep: Air Waves = Remote Sight and heating / Nerve I

    • It's not about social media so much as requiring that entities respect the boundaries of their authority. What my kid does while in school is, at least to some degree, the business of the school district. What my child does outside school is frankly none of their concern at all. Schools seem to want very much to be the child police, and the child welfare agency, and the child nutrition agency, and the child medical screening agency. Knock it off, please. Just be the school. Do that, and do it well, an

    • Is privacy even possible in any meaningful way on the modern internet or in modern life, without resorting to using things like Tor and only ever using cash?

      Sadly, even using cash isn't going to protect your anonymity much longer. Even if we don't move to a cashless society (which we probably will within 20 years) in store surveillance cameras combined with facial recognition technology will completely eliminate the possibility of purchasing anything anonymously. I expect this technology will be widespread in stores within five years if it isn't already.

  • Minority Report, 2020 edition (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @04:00AM (#59786428) Journal
    No one should be detained or convicted for something they might do, only for their real actions. Kids included. Otherwise what sort of message do you send them? "It's okay to make assumptions about people and act on them, the ends justify the means"? Horrific.
    You all should be able to guess where these sorts of 'philosophies' lead: 1984. Sadly we're almost there now: people voluntarily placing internet-connected microphones and cameras in every room of their homes, carrying GPS enabled wireless audio and video surveillance devices, cars that are internet-connected, GPS enabled, and can be remotely controlled and/or disabled.. and worse, idiots who actually want so-called 'self driving cars', with no controls whatsoever for a human (except maybe a token 'E-stop' button, that may or may not actually do anything) which by default can be controlled by someone remotely with no notice to the occupants and no ability of the occupants to take control of the vehicle they're prisoners in. Is this really the world you all want?
    Better speak your mind on this while you still may have a chance to do something about it.

  • How about allowing me to decide that? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @04:51AM (#59786516)

    It's great that you want to protect your kid, but could you please stop trying to protect mine? I can do that quite well myself, thank you.

    Also, realize that any kind of force will be met with resistance. Trying to put your kid under surveillance will result in two things: Resistance and resentment. Your child will not trust you, because you demonstrated that you neither trust your kid nor can your kid trust you to be honest with him or her. This is turn will lead to the exact opposite of what you want to accomplish: You will know less about your child's actions because your child will go out of his or her way to ensure you know as little about their life and they will try to hide as much from you as they possibly can. They will deliberately avoid and even sabotage your surveillance efforts. Just like any sane person who notices that they're being watched by someone who they do not want as their perpetual privacy invader.

    Ponder how you react if the government does that and you have a pretty good idea what your kid will do, only that kids usually have WAY more time at their hands and are WAY more concerned about what their parents know about them.

    • Children must be able to push boundaries. They must be able to try to do things that are not allowed, and face the consequences. In short, they must be able to learn. In countries where supervision is strict (Belgium, for example), you get children that are almost zombie-like quiet when supervisors are near, refusing even to respond when you ask them something, but explode into mayhem the moment the supervision is gone.

      • Children are always able to push those boundaries. For more than one reason. First and foremost, children have WAY more time at their hands to break your rules than you have to implement and control them. And peer recognition is to no small part dependent on how easily you can circumvent any kind of surveillance parents want to implement, so there is a very high incentive to share any information one may have gained in terms of getting out of total surveillance.

        So the only thing you achieve that way is to l

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 )

        Children must be able to push boundaries. They must be able to try to do things that are not allowed, and face the consequences. In short, they must be able to learn.

        It is called becoming an adult.

        In countries where supervision is strict (Belgium, for example), you get children that are almost zombie-like quiet when supervisors are near, refusing even to respond when you ask them something, but explode into mayhem the moment the supervision is gone.

        It is sort of similar here in the states. Children have been sat on, during the critical years of adolescence, so many were not allowed to test those boundaries. No "sowing of wild oats" So they didn't really grow up.

        The results are pretty horrifying. When these adult immatures get to college, they have no idea how to adult, and that delay in the process leads to some awful stuff. I live in a college town, and our local hospital is overrun with alcohol poisoning to the exten

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      There is also the little problem that people (including kids) can concentrate far less and work significantly worse when under surveillance. A significant part of their brain-power goes to looking over their shoulder and self-censorship. Hence education gets even worse and society as a whole suffers.

      Of course, if you _want_ to build a surveillance society (and there are a lot of deranged morons who want that, see the prevalence of religions with an all-knowing, all-seeing "God" who really is just a gigantic

    • It's great that you want to protect your kid, but could you please stop trying to protect mine? I can do that quite well myself, thank you.

      Also, realize that any kind of force will be met with resistance. Trying to put your kid under surveillance will result in two things: Resistance and resentment. Your child will not trust you, because you demonstrated that you neither trust your kid nor can your kid trust you to be honest with him or her.

      Pretty much this. In order to mature into functioning adults, children must be allowed a certain amount of freedom. There is a hge difference between doing the right things because you understand the reasons for it, and doing the right things because there is a camera on you and you are being monitored.

      But safety culture and it's proponents do not sleep. So the demands to keep everyone safe, and with the elevation of safety to the single most important aspect of life means this situation will get worse b

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It is not even your kid, because you can’t. It is hiding the kid that you raised from the rest of the world. It is like a parent of a 15 coming to school because the kid has no impulse control and trying to intimidate the staff to protect the kid from reasonable consequences. If an adult wants to join ISIS, the time to help was when that kid was 10, not now. If the kid does the crime, let the laws do what they have to do.

  • Digital citizenship. Crowd-sourcing. Machine-learning algorithm. Those are warm and fuzzy phrases meant to make us feel secure in the arms of corporate tech.

    That sounds exactly as "warm and fuzzy" as the stasi in WWII. And equally secure.

  • Parental duties (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @05:28AM (#59786542) Homepage

    Your job as a parent is not to "protect" your kid at any price.

    Your job as a parent is to create a functional adult who can survive independently in the world we live in.

    ie. Without you.

    If they choose to keep you around life after the age of 20 then it'll be because you're a great person, not because you have them in chains in your basement.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Your job as a parent is not to "protect" your kid at any price.

      Indeed. If you do, the price your kids pay for that will be extreme.

  • ... are given Google accounts through public schools ...

    How about teaching children to not take their personal life to work: Parents and teachers should be instructing all children to have separate email accounts for school/friends/Facebook. To work, it needs an adult to create rules so that a friends/Facebook account can't send/receive an email to/from an account on the school contact-list.

    Children need more than 'Stranger danger' nowadays, they need to learn that people they can't see in the online world, can see them.

    ... the average seventh-grader has six Instagram accounts.

    But do they implement privacy silos?

  • Five Monkeys (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @07:44AM (#59786776)
    There's a well-known trope for behavioural modelling known as the "Five Monkeys Experiment". See here [workingoutloud.com] for a really good example write-up.

    I can't help but wonder if schools have long ceased to be a place where we educate our children and are instead a place where various parties get to experiment on them in a captive environment.

    By placing massive amounts of surveillance monitoring in schools (access cards, weapons detectors, physical location trackers), the net effect is that we are conditioning young and impressionable people that this is a "new normal". So when that freshly-conditioned child goes in to the workplace for the first time, they will not consider it remotely unusual to be subject to all sorts of intrusive monitoring. They will not consider it unusual to have products at home monitor their every activity.

    Over time the remarkable becomes the new normal. When the very first automobiles were introduced, some owners hired a runner to proceed ahead of the vehicle to clear the way... When the first radio, or television, or mobile phone, or (insert your favourite piece of tech here) was introduced, it often caused enough interest that it could bring entire communities together to experience it. Neighbours huddled around a radio in London during the blitz in the 1940s, desperately waiting for news of bombing or the "all clear"... Then, with time, they become common-place and accepted as the "new normal". At this point they become invisible and we almost forget they are there.

    But when that piece of technology is intrusive, when it works against the best interests of the citizen instead of enriching their lives, that tendency towards normalization becomes incredibly dangerous.

    What is happening within schools today is conditioning the current and future generations of children to accept this level of surveillance as a "new normal". It is a massive erosion of personal freedoms and something that we should resist. Formal education has existed in the west for hundreds of years without intrusive monitoring of students. There's no need for it now.

    And I respect that people may read this and challenge with, "But what if it was your child and there was an armed nutter loose in the school?" or "What if one of the teachers was a pedophile?" or some similar scaremongering. To which the correct answer needs to be: "Surveillance is, at best, a *detective* control. It tells you when something is going wrong, as it happens. What we need to focus on are the *preventative* controls, to stop the risk from entering society or the school in the first place."

    It's important that we don't allow those with a vested interest in creating the surveillance state tell us what we need.

    Final thought: in November 1991 - nearly 30 years ago - the Berlin Wall fell and Germany began the journey towards reunification. This marked the ending of the East German Police - the notorious "Stazi" - who had informants in every workplace, and often in every home. It was a primitive but terrifying example of the sort of oppression that can exist and be created through extensive surveillance.

    Prior to 1991, the politicians of western nations told their citizens with pride, "See! We're not like those Communists! We're not like East Germany, where there are spies everywhere and the citizen is the enemy! In the west you are free!"

    The amount of surveillance taking place, on you, right now, is orders of magnitude more dangerous and more intrusive than anything the Stazi could have dreamed of. Then, it was bad, because they were communists. So why is it now okay for unaccountable private companies and faceless governments to do this?

    Just say "No!"

  • Won't somebody thinkg of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by acoustix ( 123925 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @08:20AM (#59786880)

    The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Some of the worst legislation and actions are done under the guise of doing something because of the children.

  • safety at any cost, privacy be damned

    The tragedy is, it won't make you any safer.

  • "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

  • We're going to make a whole generation of idiot kids who never lrn2independenting. Th parents who buy into this willingly are already dumb enough. Why not just call off school and make them look at a tablet all day at home instead?
  • Jesus people, the book came out 18 years ago and opens with the line "I'm a senior at Cesar Chavez High and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world." None of this is new and we will continue to make Franklin spin wildly in his grave as we surrender liberty in pursuit of imaginary safety.

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