Privacy for Students | Surveillance Self-Defense 30/06/2021, 22:03

Privacy for Students

Schools are increasingly adopting surveillance technology to spy on
students while they’re at school, at home, or even on their social media.
The companies that make these surveillance products and services
advertise them to schools as a way to keep students safe–but there’s no
evidence so far that they actually protect students, and worst of all, they
can harm the people they are supposed to protect.

Surveillance isn’t normal–it’s spying. Schools that use these technologies

to track and monitor students are violating their privacy. If you’re a student
being spied on by one of these technologies, you’re right to be
concerned.

Techniques Used to Invade Your Privacy Anchor

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While not all of the technologies used to surveil students have the same
capabilities, these are some of the techniques that can be used to track
every move you make and the data that can be gathered through these
techniques. The types of surveillance and related filtering technologies
schools are using continue to grow, so this list does not cover every type
of tool or the ways they could be used.

Types of Data That Can Be Tracked

Location Data: Tracking students’ location using their device’s GPS

coordinates, Wi-Fi connections, and contactless chips in bus
passes/ID cards, potentially both on and off school property. Schools
have used this data for automated attendance tracking and
management, including for class tardiness and school bus riding, and

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assigning consequences such as detention.

Audiovisual Data: Images, video, and audio of students while they
are on school grounds. These can be compared to databases of
known audiovisual files to identify a person.
Web Browsing Data: Monitoring browsing history keeps a record of
everything you read online, every site you access, and every term you
search for, and then forwards this information to school
administrators, and possibly reviewers employed by the surveillance
service company.
Device Usage: Some invasive software can capture and keep a
record of everything you do on a device (phone or laptop), even the
things you type or delete. This can include everything you search for
on the Internet, what you post on social media, and messages sent
through chat applications. If you log into a website or service (like
your email or social media accounts), invasive software may also
capture your usernames and passwords.

Types of Technologies That Can Track You

Spyware (sometimes called stalkerware): This is an application

that has been installed on a device that gives the administrator full
control over it. If this surveillance tool has been installed on your
device, the administrator of the spyware could have access to every
single file, picture, text message, email, and social media post (even
the disappearing ones). Once this application is installed, the device
can be monitored in real time and scanned for things like location
data, contacts, call/text logs, and browser history.
Surveillance Cameras: Some schools have installed surveillance
cameras that have the ability to identify and track students as they
move across campus, both inside buildings and outdoors. These
cameras may also have face recognition capabilities.
Microphones: Microphones can be installed at various points across
a school. They can be equipped with software that is used to record
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and analyze all sound for the purposes of aggression and stress
detection, but this technology is often inaccurate.
Social Media Monitoring: These are services that monitor students’
social media accounts and then report flagged content to school
administrators. These services also have the potential to map who
students are friends with, who they spend time with, and what topics
they are interested in.
Internet Monitoring and Filtering: If you use school Wi-Fi,
administrators can get a high-level view of your web browsing
activity, and even block access to some sites. A more invasive version
of this technology requires students to install a security certificate ,
which enables administrators to decrypt students’ encrypted Internet
activity. When this kind of certificate is installed, administrators can
access everything students read and type into their browsers while
on school Wi-Fi, like questions on search engines, messages sent to
others, and even sensitive information like passwords.
Document and Email Scanning: Some services integrate with
productivity tools students use to complete their assignments and
communicate with each other and school staff. These integrations
use filters to scan the contents of what students write in services
such as Google for Education (also known as G-Suite) and
Microsoft’s Office 365. In some cases, these services also scan email
attachments, such as images or PDFs.

What Happens to All this Data?

Data Aggregation, Reporting, and Sharing: Many of these services and

technologies retain and store the invasive data they gather about
students. This data can tell detailed stories about a student’s life and
contain extremely sensitive information that can cause serious harm if
there is a data leak. Some companies may even sell this data or share it
with third parties. In some cases, student data is reported to school
resource officers or the police.

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What Can I Do About It? Anchor link

#1. Understand How School Surveillance Affects You

Before you can address school surveillance, it’s important to know the
ways it can affect you and the people around you.

What Do They Know?

The best solutions for fighting back against surveillance don’t need to
involve a fancy tool or workaround. Sometimes, the smartest way to beat
surveillance technology is not to use the systems that are targeted by
surveillance (if you can), or to be careful about the information you do
reveal as you navigate using them.

An important step in this process is finding out what, if any, surveillance

technologies your school is using to track you, the devices you use
(personal or school-issued), and school networks. Find out and research
what the school is using, so that you know what information is being
tracked and can take steps to protect yourself and your data.

Privacy as a Team Sport

Protecting your privacy is a job no one can do alone. While there are many
steps you can take to protect your privacy on your own, the real protection
comes when we protect each others’ privacy as a group. If you change
your own tools and behavior, but your classmates don’t, it’s more likely
that information about you will be caught up in the surveillance they are
under as well.

Let’s use an example scenario to explore how this could happen:

You’re socializing with friends from your school, and some who go to

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other schools. You turned off location tracking on your mobile device, but
your friends haven’t. Their devices are tracking all of their movements and
how long they are in a location. One of your classmates takes a picture of
everyone with their mobile device. Since their mobile device is tracking
their location, this information is included in the picture’s metadata .
Your friend posts the picture on their public social media profile and tags
you. If your school is conducting social media surveillance, they can see
who posted the picture, everyone in the picture, and the time and location
the picture was taken. Even though you tried to keep yourself from being
tracked, your school now knows all of this information–not just about you,
but about everyone in your friend group who was there.

You are only as protected as the least-protected person in your social

group. That’s why it’s important to help each other and protect your
privacy as a team.

You may wonder, “How could the information gathered in this scenario be
used to harm me or my friends?” Here are some examples:

Your friends who don’t attend your school are now included in your
school’s surveillance system dragnet and don’t know they have been
surveilled.
You and your friends might be attending an LGBTQ+ event when the
photo was taken. If you share or discuss this photo on social media
while being under school surveillance, it may trigger a scanning
technology's list of keywords and notify school officials. If school
officials have biases against LGBTQ+ people–or if the school gives
unsupportive parents access to this information via a dashboard,
parent login, or even direct notifications–this could put you or your
friend's well-being at risk .
You might be doing political organizing for a cause, and if you’re at a
private or religious school, the school and/or your parents may not
approve of it depending on the issue. In this scenario, your school

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could suspend you or your parents could punish you for this activity.

#2. Talk About It

Talk to Your Friends: Help them understand the problem, why their
privacy is important to protect, and that privacy is a team sport.
Talk to Trusted Adults: Tell them your concerns and ask for their
help.
Use Your Collective Voice: Tell your school how surveillance affects
you. Request, at least, transparency and accountability on decisions
regarding school surveillance technologies: your school should be
honest about what technologies they are using, how the technologies
work, and how your data is being protected. You should also ask
them to provide proof that the technologies actually help improve
school and student safety. You may even want to demand that your
school stop using certain technologies altogether or promise not to
adopt certain technologies in the future.
Meet with your school’s principal, information technology
administrator, and other school administrators.
Attend school board meetings and present your concerns.
Find your school’s or district’s calendar of board meetings.
Recruit other students and have clear talking points.
Speak during the comment period for the topic if it’s on the
agenda, or in the general comment period if it’s not on the
agenda (arrive early and sit toward the front to give yourself
the best chance of getting to speak).
Be courageous and firm. It’s your privacy, not theirs.
Research and write about it in your school newspaper or other
student media.
Create a petition and organize your classmates.
Contact state/federal government officials and ask them to act
to protect your privacy.

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Arguments You Might Encounter

Surveillance proponents use a few common arguments to convince you to

give up fighting for your privacy. Here are counterpoints you can use to
push back against surveillance culture and help others understand the
harm it does.

Myth #1. “If you did nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide.”

This argument is based on an incorrect assumption: that only “bad”

people or people who broke the rules or the law want privacy. There are
numerous reasons why someone would want to maintain their privacy. It
comes down to this: what do you want to protect? The fact that you went
to a health clinic or attended a political rally, searched online about sexual
orientations or a health issue, or shared personal photos with a friend–
these are all examples of things that are private and should remain that
way. Privacy is about protecting things that matter to you.

Myth #2. “You’re worried that we could use this technology to cause
serious harm, but we would never do that!”

The people in charge want you to trust that, while they could use
surveillance technologies to abuse their power, they wouldn’t. It’s not a
matter of trust–they shouldn’t have this power in the first place. Here’s a
short film that explores the effect surveillance can have on people, with
examples of how this power imbalance is unjust. Another issue is that
student data is often in the hands of the companies that provide these
surveillance products and services, that have control over this sensitive
data, and could share it with others.

Myth #3. “This is for your own safety.”

There is no evidence that these technologies increase student safety,

and, in fact, they have been shown to harm the very students they are

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intended to protect:

When people are constantly being watched, their behavior changes.

They don’t feel comfortable being themselves, and often censor
themselves because being watched makes them afraid.
Surveillance breaks down the trust that students have with their
teachers, with their schools, and with each other. When students
need help, they are too afraid to reach out to anyone who could help
them because of this lack of trust.
Marginalized students are often unfairly targeted and punished
because of this unwarranted and invasive surveillance.

Myth #4. “It’s useless to fight against it.”

This is privacy paralysis, and this sense of helplessness is exactly how

surveillance proponents want you to feel. However, you do have the power
to create change. When people collectively work together to fight for what
they believe in, it works. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

#3. Minimize the Data Being Tracked

Surveillance is all about getting as much information about you as

possible: your habits, where you go and when, who you associate with,
and what you care about. While the strategies described below won’t
protect you from all the surveillance types described in this guide, they
will help reduce the amount of data that can be collected about you.

Lockdown Your Identity Online

Protect yourself on social networks:

Where you can, change your social media accounts to be private
instead of public, and review all new follower requests before
approving them. You may also want to review your current
followers to make sure you know and trust them.

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If you need a public account, consider using a separate, private

account for topics, posts, or conversations you’d like to keep
private.
Don’t just change your own social media settings and behavior.
Talk with your friends about the potentially sensitive data you
reveal about each other online, and how you can protect each
other as a team.
Reduce the risks you face in online groups by adjusting visibility
settings.
Enable two-factor authentication (or “2FA ”) on as many online
accounts as you can. If the data gathered about you through
surveillance is leaked in a breach, having 2FA enabled will make it
harder for others to access your accounts, even if they know your
usernames and passwords.

Turn Off Location Tracking When You Don’t Need It

The way to do this can vary by device and by application. You can change
your overall location-tracking preferences in your system settings, but this
may not turn off location tracking completely. For example, some mobile
device applications may turn your location tracking on for a variety of
reasons; you may need to look at your phone’s settings, or in some cases
each application’s permissions to disable it.

Be Aware of Risks in Personal vs. School Environments

For students worried about school surveillance, it’s critical to keep your
personal and school lives separate. Avoid using school devices, accounts,
and networks for personal activity. Even if your school claims to use
geofencing (i.e. you’re only monitored on campus), a lot of the information
can leak between your personal and school life through your Internet
activity or the devices you use.

Devices and Networks: Everything you do on a school-issued

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device, even if you’re using your home Wi-Fi or another trusted

network, could be tracked. Similarly, if you’re using a personal device
on a school network, your activity could also be monitored. That’s
why it’s best to access your personal or sensitive accounts only on
your personal devices and networks you trust. This might not always
be possible, but it’s a good goal.
Logins: Don’t use your school email address for any personal online
accounts. This could expose notifications, direct messages, and
other content from your personal accounts to the school’s monitoring
systems.
Web Browsing: If there is information you don’t want your school to
track, it’s better to search for those topics off of school devices and
networks.

Use Good Digital Security Practices

Take good care of your data by using encryption on your devices.

Use a password manager to create strong passwords.
Decide what you want to protect and choose tools that work for you.

And Lastly... Anchor link

Surveillance isn’t normal, and it isn’t okay. You are right to feel concerned
and to want to speak up about your privacy. To learn more about how you
can protect yourself, check out the rest of Surveillance Self-Defense’s
guides. If you need a place to get started, take a look at our Security
Starter Pack or our playlist of guides for LGBTQ Youth.

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