Senators Question School Surveillance Startups on Data, Civil Rights

(Bloomberg) -- School surveillance companies are not doing enough to determine whether their products unfairly target minority groups, according to a report released by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey.

Democratic senators sent questions to four of the most prominent companies that make education software monitoring students’ online activity. The resulting report about their findings said that parents and schools are not fully informed about the extent and risks associated with the tracking software made by GoGuardian, Gaggle.Net Inc., Bark Technologies Inc. and Securly Inc. The report also said that because the products could increase students’ contact with law enforcement, the software “may be exacerbating the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Online education during the pandemic led to unprecedented levels of digital surveillance of children, as schools rushed to find ways to keep track of students, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in October. Private equity-backed GoGuardian, officially named Liminex Inc., is one of the most popular makers of education surveillance tools. Its software helps teachers and administrators track what students are doing on school-issued devices, and sometimes personal devices when kids are logged into school accounts.

The senators’ report says none of the companies has assessed whether their algorithms are biased or track whether they over-target students of color or LGBTQ students. Each of the companies told the senators’ offices that they do not study the effects of their products on specific populations due to privacy concerns. For example, GoGuardian does not collect demographic information in order “to maximize student privacy,” the company said in a letter replying to the senators’ inquiries.

The report authors pushed back on the idea that the companies were striving for minimal data collection. “These excuses for the companies’ failure do not make sense,” the senators say. The companies are already collecting sensitive and personally identifiable information about students, according to the report, “so they could easily pair that sensitive information with student demographics to better understand if their product is inflicting disproportionate harm.” 

The report raised concerns that students could be penalized for their activity when not in school. GoGuardian told senators that only about one-third of schools use a feature that disables monitoring outside of classroom hours and on weekends. The company also said it sees peak volume for alerts about student activity between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., indicating the company is identifying students’ activities after-hours.

In letters to the senators responding to their inquiries, the companies stressed that their products are meant to protect students from harmful content online. The software “is not intended to be used for discipline or punitive purposes,” Gaggle wrote in its response to the senators. “The goal is to find any indication of a child in crisis, so that a tragedy can be prevented.”

The companies’ responses also reveal how popular tools to track students’ online activity have become. GoGuardian said it has 6,700 schools or districts using Admin, its web filtering system, with 500 schools using Beacon, its automated alert system that assesses the risk level students may pose to themselves or others. Bark said its free product, Bark for Schools, which filters websites, is used by more than 2,900 schools or districts with more than 5.5 million students. And Gaggle said 1,500 school districts use its service.

The senators recommended in the report that the government craft guidelines on what schools should consider when implementing surveillance tools as part of the Children’s Internet Protection Act. The Department of Education should also require that local agencies track the impact of monitoring services, they said. “Absent federal action, these surveillance products may continue to put students’ civil rights, safety, and privacy at risk.”

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