The Playground Panopticon

-- By OrnaMadigan - 13 Oct 2023

Intro

A red dot appeared next to someone’s name, I quickly reprimanded them– “please get back on task.” A pop-up screen informing me that someone else had been inactive for over 5 mins, I entered their document and typed “I can see you’re not working.” I yawned, it was just another day, as a 7th grade middle school teacher.

While this continuous surveillance may conjure images of a factory overload, for myself and the countless other educators faced with the challenges of distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic this quickly became our reality. Uncertain of how to maintain student attention and effectively deliver material, platforms such as Zoom, Gabble, and Google Classroom swooped in, promising teachers a panacea. With no time to spare, we took the bait. However, even as classrooms have transitioned back to in-person learning, the surveillance technologies that had become integral to remote teaching remained prevalent. While many ed-tech platforms continue to tout these tools under the guise of increased safety and enhanced student engagement, the long-term consequences of this surveillance culture are both perilous and wildly unregulated

Section I - So what do I mean by surveillance technology?

Much of the surveillance students are facing when using school issued computers, can be encompassed under the umbrella term of “activity monitoring,” or the practice of using technology to monitor students activities online. According to a 2022 survey https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Hidden-Harms-The-Misleading-Promise-of-Monitoring-Students-Online-Research-Report-Final-Accessible.pdf by the Center for Democracy and Technology “Eighty-nine percent of teachers report that their school monitors student activity on school-issued and/or personal devices.” Inside the classroom this activity monitoring looks like programs such as Google Classroom and Lightspeed, which allow teachers to remotely access student’s computers, including viewing student’s screens, closing student’s tabs, and accessing student’s emails, during the class period. However, this surveillance doesn’t stop at the classroom door. According to the same study by the Center for Democracy and Technology cited above "only 45 percent of teachers report that student activity monitoring is limited to when school is in session." Some of the main contenders in this area include platforms like Bark, Gnosis IQ, and Gaggle. These platforms use AI technologies to continuously monitor student activity even after school hours, recording and alerting administrators, and sometimes even law enforcement when “dangerous” or potentially “harmful” activity or key words are discovered – this includes anything from accessing pornographic websites, searching for LGBTQIA+ resources, sending explicit messages, or using self-harm language.

Section II - The Downside to these Platforms

A. Desensitization

In an article for Buzzfeed about the effects of the surveillance platform Gaggle, a student noted; “I feel like now I’m very desensitized to the threat of my information being looked at by people,” and they certainly are not alone https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/gaggle-school-surveillance-technology-education. The constant surveillance students are being subjected to, is forcing students to normalize having their screens watched, their emails read, and their personal search history inspected, something many adults would scoff at if their own employer requested the same. In the 2019 netflix documentary, The Great Hack, film makers dived into the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, documenting the terrifying realities of the ways personal data shared online can be bought and used to manipulate and control masses of voters https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/20/the-great-hack-cambridge-analytica-scandal-facebook-netflix. In a world where data is being stripped from users and used to control their thoughts and actions, do we really want to train our next generation to be willing participants? Unfortunately, we are teaching students to hand over their data with no questions asked.

B. Uncertainty

Moreover, little is known of where student data is going or how it is being utilized. Gaggle for instance, employs a multi-factor human-review test whereby a Gaggle employee reviews the flagged material and on a case-by-case basis determines whether it needs to be elevated. This means daily, flagged student material–including explicit student images and messages, are being reviewed by Gaggle employees with little information on where these images or messages go after review. With employees reporting on Glassdoor that the application process was little more than an online application and a short waitlist, it begs the question why put the sensitive personal information of minors in hands unknown? Furthermore, little is known of what these companies subsequently do with the collected data or how it is protected. In the wake of Google’s large-scale data breaches, are we really fine with making students easy targets?

Section III - Solution? Current Legislation/Potential Legislative Fixes

So what is there to do? One avenue of resolution is legislative. Currently, most schools promulgate these “safety” measures under the guise of conforming with Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), an act passed in 2001 to address concerns with “children's access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet” https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act However, schools have expanded this act’s meaning to cover constant surveillance, something the act never intended. In a recent investigation by Senator Warren and Markey, the pair urged for the “lack of clarity in the definition of ‘monitoring the online activities,’” to be resolved through legislative enactment in order to better delineate the exact parameters of what schools can and cannot monitor https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/356670%20Student%20Surveillance.pdf.

However, legislative change is slow, and student privacy is under attack now. In tandem with legislative change this issue also needs direct student action. Luckily, student’s themselves hate to be monitored. They do not want their schools inspecting their texts, or thumbing through their search history. This emotion is likely the most powerful tool for change this issue has. If we can harness that energy today, the possibilities for change are endless and immediate.

Conclusion

In conclusion, schools, students and parents are largely wading into un-chartered waters. However, what is clear is that student data is being monitored and utilized, with detrimental and long lasting effects that reach far beyond the classroom. If we do not move to act soon, we may never have the chance to act later.

• #Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, OrnaMadigan
• #Set DENYTOPICVIEW = TWikiGuest

Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules for preference declarations. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of these lines. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated ALLOWTOPICVIEW list.