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Jason Naranjo
Student Technology and Surveillance
The increase in the use of technology for school during the COVID 19 pandemic because of remote learning, and the present continued use of technology in classrooms, has brought student technological monitoring or student technological surveillance to the attention of many in pedagogy– teachers and students alike. After the Cambridge Analytica scandal of the late 2010s, there have been anxieties about the role of surveillance and data mining with the use of popular social media applications like Facebook or its new name, Meta, and other third party applications that have permissions to harvest data on one’s personal devices. By the same token, the increased use of school provided technologies like laptops and tablets warranted the creation of programs like GoGuardian with the intention to monitor student activities in the classrooms. However, many educators and those in the pedagogical realm worry about the invasiveness and unintended consequences of programs like GoGuardian. There are several challenges to consider when addressing the role of technological surveillance inside the classrooms; Does surveilling the use of student technology in the classroom support academic success? And does it do so without infringing on a student’s right to privacy? And finally, what are the negative effects of monitoring student technology and do they outweigh the intended goal of monitoring students for academic success? As a New York City teacher and graduate student, the goal of this paper is to inform other teachers, educators, students, and those in pedagogy about the use of student monitoring technologies, and to support existing forums with continuing discourses about the positive and negative effects of these technologies, so that students can preserve their rights, avoid any unintended effects, and can achieve academic success.
GoGuardian is one of the more commonly used student monitoring platforms in New York City schools. So, to understand the effects of the technology, one must first learn what it says it does and what it actually does. The GoGuardian Privacy Policy for Product Users page on the website states that the platform “is an educational technology company that provides K-12 schools and school districts with digital learning tools designed to supercharge the learning potential of every student.”
Judging from the statement, learning is claimed to be the goal of the program. The GoGuardian website states the platform assists teachers with classroom management, instruction and assessment, safety features in the event of an emergency, like a school shooting, and algorithms that help monitor students’ mental health. The programs are designed to keep students on track while learning, and away from distractions that could interfere with their classwork. Certain extensions on GoGuardian provide teachers with assessments that help organize student learning needs.
Furthermore, the programs are meant to protect students from harmful content or from accessing harmful content on the internet. In the event that a student does try to access blocked content, the search is flagged and the teacher or school administrator is alerted. The algorithms can detect any student search which may be indicative of severe mental health issues that involve self-harm. As far as any privacy or data concerns the GoGuardian website claims “use personal student information to market or advertise to students, parents, or anyone else,” and do not “sell, trade, or rent personal student information under any circumstances.” Additionally, the GoGuardian website states that GoGuardian pledged to the 2020 student privacy pledge– a pledge advertised by a forum on the future of privacy, which reiterates many of the aforementioned claims about not misusing or selling student data. On a final note, the GoGuardian website has affiliations with the National PTA or National Parent-Teacher Association that claim to be “committed to student success” (GoGuardian, 2022). Overall, GoGuardian and its programs seem to have the academic success and safety of the students, and the safety of their data in mind.
Still, not everyone is convinced by the promises made by student monitoring companies like GoGuardian. An article in a 2021 forum on the future of privacy titled, “ The Privacy and Equity Implications of Using Self-Harm Monitoring Technologies: Recommendations for Schools” (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021) warns that there are unforeseen consequences of these monitoring programs. The article expresses concerns about the personal information collected by GoGuardian like, “such as gender identity, sexual orientation, citizenship status, religious beliefs, political affiliations, or family situation revealed or shared” (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021, p. 2). The article warns that in the wrong hands collecting such sensitive information could lead to the possible alienation or mistreatment of a student (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021, p. 3); for example, the mistreatment of a student because of their or their parents’ political affiliation, a student being threatened with deportation because of their citizenship status ,or any sort of partisan alienation.
Furthermore, the article raises the concerns for the necessity for their to be comprehensive policies in place to oversee programs like GoGuardian:
School districts may overestimate the ability of self-harm monitoring systems to identify and underestimate the importance of developing comprehensive policies and processes for using the systems. Due to the inherent limitations in a computer system’s ability to interpret context, these systems often inaccurately or mistakenly flag student content and over-collect confidential data (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021, p. 1).
The article warns about the necessity for oversight and policies to be set into place because of the severe consequences of inaccurately flagging a student, which can “needlessly put in contact with law enforcement and social services, or facing school disciplinary consequences as a result of being flagged (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021, p. 2). By the same token, the “chilling effect” of a student unnecessarily being flagged can have a detrimental effect on their school work because of an avoidance of properly using their technological resources for fear of being flagged (Collins, Park, Reddy, Sharifi, & Vance, 2021, p. 3). Overall, the experience of knowing they are being watched can be daunting on students. The authors of the article present legitimate concerns about the misuse of programs like GoGuardian, and the potential for the misuse and abuse of gathering student data.
Programs like GoGuardian are created with the intention of supporting teachers for student academic success. Still, the Collins’ article highlights the ethical quandaries of using programs to monitor students and gathering their data. The use of technology in classrooms is essential because using technological resources in the classroom is more realistic in terms of what college and what entering the workforce will resemble, and so, there clearly is a necessity for programs like GoGuardian to assist teachers in making sure their students stay on track in their classwork and avoid any harmful content– there is also a social-emotional learning aspect to logging the types of searches a student makes, and their overall safety. However, there is a question of the amount of transparency that school-monitoring companies like GoGuardian are obliged to have with the American public. Currently, there is no government association that oversees the collection and distribution of the data of the American public. Therefore, parents must rely on the “alleged” transparency of companies like GoGuardian to not misuse school, teacher, or student data. Furthermore, the lack of oversight by federal or state agencies can exacerbate the misuse of student data on a local level like the Collins’ article warns. Going on the word of a private company is not enough to debunk the claims made by Collins' article. Therefore, comprehensive policies and oversight are necessary to ensure the safety of teachers and students.
References:
Collins, S. Park, J, Reddy, A. Sharifi, Y, Vance, A. (2021). The privacy and equity implications of using self-harm monitoring technologies: Recommendations for schools. Future of Privacy Forum. 30. https://studentprivacycompass.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/FPF-Self-Harm-Report-R4.pdf
GoGuardian. (2022, October 31). Ask the right questions to support student online safety. GoGuardian. https://www.goguardian.com/blog/ask-the-right-questions-to-support-student-online-safety
GoGuardian. (n.d.). Privacy and trust center. GoGuardian. https://www.goguardian.com/privacy-information
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Thanks Jason!
As I note above, I wonder what students think of technologies like GoGuardian? How do they explore identity and deeper parts of themselves when they are under constant scrutiny?
I think my biggest suggestion would be to foreground GoGuardian right from the get go. In short, you would use this technology as the declared focus of your entire paper right at the beginning.
Regardless, you raise many interesting issues!
Dino