How to Protect Yourself If Your School Uses Surveillance Tech

There are more eyes on students today than just a teacher’s watchful gaze. Thousands of school districts use monitoring software that can track students’ online searches, scan their emails, and in some cases, send alerts of perceived threats to law enforcement. A recent investigation by The Dallas Morning News revealed that colleges have been using an AI social-media-monitoring tool to surveil student protesters.

While technology companies claim to be able to prevent violence, there’s little proof that surveillance can actually protect students. Meanwhile, monitoring software has been used to eveal students’ sexuality without their consent. Low-income, Black, and Hispanic students are also disproportionately exposed to surveillance and discipline.

If your school (or your child’s school) uses monitoring software, there are a couple of steps you can take to protect your privacy—and start a conversation with your school.

Ask Your School These Questions

It’s important first to understand why your school is using monitoring software in the first place. In the US, schools are required by the Children’s Internet Protection Act to have some kind of web filtering in place to prevent students from accessing obscene or harmful material online. Schools are not required to implement sophisticated technologies that can scan the content of students’ emails and send alerts to police.

Next, find out your specific school’s exact monitoring practices. “A lot of these student activity monitoring tools are different. You don’t actually know the full scope of what it is until you’re able to have a conversation with someone,” says Marika Pfefferkorn, cofounder of the Twin Cities Innovation Alliance and executive director of the Midwest Center for School Transformation. Pfefferkorn also helps to lead the No Data About Us Without Us Institute, where she works to educate parents and students about data, privacy, and equity issues in their school district.

She suggests starting with a trusted teacher or counselor. If they don’t know specifics, or don’t have any documentation to answer your questions, that can be a red flag—and an indication that you may need to approach school or district leadership.

Here are some questions you can ask:

• What software is being used? Does it operate on school devices, over the school Wi-Fi network, or both?
• If it’s student monitoring software, what kind of information does the algorithm scan for? If the algorithm detects a “threat” or “inappropriate content,” who does the alert go to? At what point does content get flagged to a third party, such as law enforcement?
• How is student data secured?
• Where can students and parents report violations of privacy in the district? What processes does the district have to repair harm?
• How much of the budget is used for surveillance technology?

Pfefferkorn also encourages asking your school to perform an audit of its monitoring software, which could reveal what kind of content the algorithm is tracking and how. An audit might reveal whether the software is truly effective or is picking up on false alarms. Encourage your school to document and inform parents of exactly what they track, how they store, and when they delete student data. Ask if you can have your child’s data deleted, or at least see what has been collected.

Act Like You’re Being Watched, Even After School

Whether you’re using your phone on your school’s Wi-Fi, or you’re using a school laptop at home, assume that everything you do is being scanned and logged by monitoring software. Did you plug in your personal phone to your school laptop? The photos on your phone might be scanned too. Nude photos sent from students’ personal phones, if plugged into school devices to charge, have triggered alerts to school administrators.

“You should assume that anything touching your school-issued device is going to be monitored in some way,” says Jason Kelley, associate director of digital strategy at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. Monitoring doesn’t stop after school or off-campus either.

If you’re a student, practice the basics of digital privacy. Don’t use your school laptop or Wi-Fi to search for anything sensitive, such as medical information. Remember that any kind of data or content on a school communications platform can be scanned and flagged: your school email address, the documents you type into your school Google Drive, your online searches, the images you download, the videos you watch. Even content that is completely safe might be flagged by the algorithm: For example, the software Gaggle can flag keywords related to LGBTQ identity such as ”gay” and “queer” as instances of bullying.

Even if you trust a handful of teachers or counselors, remember that your activity could be seen by other adults in the school, or even law enforcement. Don’t do anything on your device that you wouldn’t want them to see as well.

Others might advise students to “just use your personal device, on your family’s personal network.” It’s important to note that this kind of guidance isn’t accessible to all students. For low-income students, who might rely more on school technology, it may be more difficult to sidestep a school’s surveillance structures.

Mind Your Social Media

Schools might also use AI tools to track social media posts. This is particularly relevant for college students. While colleges generally don’t use content monitoring software, it’s likely they’ll monitor students’ social media for potential risk of violence or protest.

Just as you would assume that anything you type on your school-issued device can be seen and scanned by an algorithm, assume that your public social profiles can be, too. Even private accounts aren’t completely safe, says Kelley. (Yes, even your super-locked-down Finsta.) If you comment on a public account, for example, that might be scanned and subjected to social-media-monitoring algorithms as well.

If you’re in doubt, send text messages rather than using a social media platform. You might consider using an encrypted messaging app like Signal. If you’re discussing topics that might be more sensitive (such as reproductive rights access), the safest way to communicate is with a trusted person, in person.

Team Up With Other Students and Parents

After gathering your research, you might feel that your school isn’t using monitoring software fairly or appropriately. Pfefferkorn recommends having conversations with other students and parents. Listen to what they’re experiencing and how they’re thinking through it, especially if you want to push back against your school’s use of monitoring software.

If you feel you need legal support, reach out to a local agency. Pfefferkorn recommends your local ACLU, NAACP, or Restore the Fourth as good options for advocacy assistance.

Your school’s response will depend on whether you go to a public or private school. For example, a public school might be required to disclose more information, for example, about how much it spends on monitoring software. A private school would not be obliged to give that same information. As another example, while public schools must abide by the recent ruling that room-scanning proctoring software is unconstitutional, private schools do not.

Now is a critical moment for students, parents, and communities to help shape the future of safety in schools, according to Pfefferkorn. Congress passed a law that directs $300 million for schools to strengthen security infrastructure, in addition to the funding to schools through the American Rescue Plan. She hopes that communities can be more involved in how schools invest that funding, and can help shape more proactive solutions. “It’s really critical right now for us to prioritize our values as a community of what safety means,” she says. “For me, safety is not being surveilled.”