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Ever since the start of the pandemic, more and more public school students are using laptops, tablets or similar devices issued by their schools.

The percentage of teachers who reported their schools had provided their students with such devices doubled from 43% before the pandemic to , a September 2021 report shows.

In one sense, it might be tempting to celebrate how schools are doing more to keep their students digitally connected during the pandemic. The problem is, schools are not just providing kids with computers to keep up with their schoolwork. Instead 鈥� in a trend that could easily be described as Orwellian 鈥� the vast majority of schools are also using those devices to keep tabs on what students are doing in their personal lives.

Indeed, reported that their schools had installed artificial intelligence-based surveillance software on these devices to monitor students鈥� online activities and what is stored in the computer.

This student surveillance is taking place 鈥� at taxpayer expense 鈥� in cities and school communities throughout the United States.

For instance, in the Minneapolis school district, school officials paid over $355,000 to use tools provided by until 2023. Three-quarters of incidents reported 鈥� that is, cases where the system flagged students鈥� online activity 鈥� took place outside school hours.

In Baltimore, where the public school system uses the surveillance app, police officers are when the system detects students typing keywords related to self-harm.

Safety versus privacy

Vendors claim these tools from self-harm or online activities that could lead to trouble. However, and have raised questions about those claims.

Vendors often how their and the type of data used to train them.

Privacy advocates fear these tools may harm students by and .

As a researcher who and issues in various , I know that intrusive surveillance techniques cause to students, and .

Artificial intelligence not intelligent enough

Even the to understand human language and . This is why student surveillance systems pick up a lot of instead of real problems.

In some cases, these surveillance programs have flagged students discussing music deemed suspicious and even students 鈥淭o Kill a Mockingbird.鈥�

Harm to students

When students know they are being monitored, they are to share true thoughts online and are more careful about what they search. This can discourage vulnerable groups, such as students with mental health issues, from getting needed services.

When students know that their every move and everything read and written is watched, they are also . In general, surveillance has a negative impact on students鈥� . It also of the skills and mindset needed to exercise their rights.

More adverse impact on minorities

U.S. schools minority students. African American students鈥� chances of being suspended are than that of their white peers.

After evaluating flagged content, , who take disciplinary actions on a case-by-case basis. The in schools鈥� use of these tools could lead to further harm for minority students.

The situation is worsened by the fact that Black and Hispanic students rely . This in turn makes minority students more likely to be monitored and exposes them to greater risk of some sort of intervention.

When both minority students and their white peers are monitored, the former group is more likely to be penalized because the training data used in developing artificial intelligence programs often . Artificial intelligence programs languages . This is due to the in the datasets used to train such programs and .

Leading AI models are that those written by others. They are 2.2 times more likely to flag tweets written in African American slang.

These tools also affect sexual and gender minorities more adversely. Gaggle has reportedly flagged because they are associated with pornography, even though the terms are often used to describe one鈥檚 identity.

Increased security risk

These surveillance systems also increase students鈥� cybersecurity risks. First, to comprehensively monitor students鈥� activities, surveillance vendors compel students to install a set of certificates known as root certificates. As the highest-level security certificate installed in a device, a root certificate to determine the entire system鈥檚 security. One drawback is that these certificates .

Gaggle, which scans digital files of more than each year, installs such certificates. This tactic of installing certificates is similar regimes, , use to and that cybercriminals use to .

Second, surveillance system vendors use insecure systems that hackers can exploit. In March 2021, computer security software company McAfee found in student monitoring system vendor Netop鈥檚 Vision Pro Education software. For instance, Netop did not .

The software was used by over 9,000 schools worldwide to monitor millions of students. The vulnerability .

Finally, personal information of students that is stored by the vendors is . In July 2020, criminals stole 鈥� including names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers and passwords 鈥� by hacking online proctoring service ProctorU. This data was then leaked online.

Schools would do well to look more closely at the harm being caused by their surveillance of students and to question whether they actually make students more safe 鈥� or less.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

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