The Dangers School Surveillance Systems Pose to Student’s Privacy

When you hear the word “school”, you probably don’t associate it with the word “prison”, but today, those two places have a lot more in common than you might realize at first. As schools struggle to reopen for in-person learning this year, many have decided to implement surveillance measures in the name of safety. Things like facial recognition cameras and tracking badges are now becoming commonplace at many schools across the county in order to enforce rules and keep tabs on students.

The COVID-19 virus has substantially strengthened a trend towards increased student surveillance in schools. Although some schools had advanced surveillance systems in place prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most did not. However, many schools are now considering installing these systems. The advanced surveillance systems we see popping up in schools today are comprised of networks of cameras, tracking devices, receivers, and computers to process all the information brought in. These systems are capable of precisely tracking where students are, who they have interacted with throughout the day, identifying them, and more. By using this technology as a surveillance tool against students, schools are invading those students’ privacy.

Surveillance technology has been around in schools for many years in the form of simple video cameras. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “more than 80 percent of public schools—and more than 94 percent of high schools—in the U.S. used security cameras to monitor students during the 2015-2016 school year” (Fox). However, over the last decade, there has been a trend towards bringing more advanced surveillance technology into schools “that keeps a constant, increasingly sophisticated eye on halls and classrooms” (Waddell). Centegix, which is just one of many companies that provides schools with these advanced surveillance systems, has stated that it has implemented its wearable panic alert system, CrisisAlert, in over 1000 schools across the United States since 2018 (“Education Safety”). The system includes wearable alert badges for staff and students. Although CrisisAlert is not fully intended for surveilling students, Centegix offers several other school systems that are more advanced for the purpose of student tracking and surveillance. Simple video surveillance systems in schools are now becoming much more sophisticated and invasive

This trend toward a more invasive surveillance of students has been accelerated by the challenges brought to schools by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many schools need to now monitor students’ whereabouts for contact tracing purposes. To meet this new demand, Centegix has created a new line of products called ContactAlert, which allows school administration to track students at school using wearable badges. The badges monitor students' location and interactions with other students including who they come into contact with and for how long. Yet, many school leaders have stated, “the products will become part of the post-pandemic landscape in schools'' (Waddell). Now nearly every school open for in-person learning in the United States has some form of student tracking in place. Further, according to Elizabeth Laird, the senior fellow of student privacy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, because schools “aren’t required to tell parents about the different types of technology that they’re using on campus,” the true number of schools that have adopted these new surveillance technologies this year is unclear (Waddell). However, it is clear to see that these types of advanced surveillance systems have become much more popular and mainstream in schools over the last few years.

With the increasing popularity of these types of surveillance systems in schools, many companies have created different types of systems to track and monitor students. For instance, Motorola has developed AI software that is compatible with its existing networks of cameras within schools and is capable of identifying how far apart students are standing from each other and also able to recognize when students do not have masks on. The software will also log data, including students’ names, regarding any incidents and alert administration (Jargon). Another company, Volan Technology, Offers a system of Bluetooth badges for students to wear that allows school administration to track everything from a student’s location within the building at any given time and who they have interacted with throughout the day, to information about their health, including their temperature and past illnesses (“Education”). The system gathers all this information in real-time and alerts administration on any problems, like when a student is standing too close to another student, when students are interacting with each other for too long, or when a student’s temperature rises. Another form of surveillance that is becoming popular in schools is facial recognition camera systems, which allows computers to identify and track students just by seeing their face. However, these systems can be even more invasive than just being able to recognize a student's identity. According to David Rivero, the chief of police with the University of Miami Police Department, the university’s facial recognition system “now includes 1,338 cameras, recording 24 hours a day” (Retta). It can also “detect predefined situations and parameters such as motion detection, facial recognition, object detection, and much more” (Retta). The extent to which this technology can surveil students raises many privacy concerns and has many people worried.

This type of technology is eerily similar to that used in George Orwell’s 1984, where telescreens were used by the government to “receive and transmit simultaneously” about citizens, including audio and video, so the government could surveil them (Orwell 3). Today, the surveillance systems being brought into schools are doing essentially the same thing using cameras with advanced AI software and facial recognition technology to watch students and mandatory tracking badges to monitor their location at all times while at school. It is especially concerning when this type of student-tracking technology is implemented in public school districts because that means students would be given mandatory government-issued tracking devices. That brings up many privacy concerns especially regarding who can access the data collected by these devices, how long the information can be kept, and what it can be used for. According to Amy Fox, a former public educator who now practices school and employment law, “FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] requires schools receiving federal funding to preserve the confidentiality of student education records and the personally identifiable information therein. However, FERPA only applies to video tracking “when photo or video is directly related to a student” (Fox). The act does not apply “when a student is shown participating in school activities open to the public and the recording does not focus on any specific student. Moreover, surveillance recordings that are created and maintained by a school’s law enforcement unit are not education records and, therefore, not confidential” (Fox). Student surveillance information from schools that do not receive federal aid are also not protected under the act. Surveillance records of students at school that are not protected under FERPA are subject to open record laws, which all states have adopted and which allow people to access public records, “ thus, school surveillance recordings are often the subject of public records requests by the media, citizen groups, or other third parties” (Fox). Schools would also be able to create detailed profiles of each student using the data collected from surveillance devices and could then share these profiles with outside groups, like colleges or law enforcement agencies. According to Student Privacy Compass, an organization focused on student privacy issues in schools, there is no standard set of rules governing who has access to the data that's collected and not protected by FERPA and how it can be used, which has many parents worried (“School Safety...”). Once parents found out that the New Albany-Plain school district in Ohio “was planning to pilot Volan’s badges as students returned to classrooms after months of remote learning,” the parents “[blasted] the district for violating students’ privacy” and demanded that Volan’s tracking system not be used in their schools (Keierleber). The district ultimately sided with the parents about privacy concerns and abandoned their plans to implement Volan’s system. This is not the only example of privacy concerns preventing surveillance systems from entering schools. On a much larger scale, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York recently signed legislation “suspending the use of facial recognition technology and other kinds of biometric technology in schools” because of “serious and legitimate privacy concerns” (“Governor Cuomo...”). This shows just how concerned people are about who would be able to access the data collected from the students and how that data could be used if this type of surveillance was used in schools..

The extensiveness of these surveillance systems that many schools are now choosing to use is definitely disturbing and it’s especially unsettling to think that everything students do at school would be monitored and logged all the time while they’re there and how small mistakes a student makes in high school could be used against them in the future and remain a permanent blemish on their record. However, I think one of the most concerning aspects of all is that school districts have implemented these surveillance systems without consulting parents and students, and in some cases without even telling them. With all these advanced surveillance systems in place at schools, they are beginning to look more like mini Orwellian societies, or even prisons, where everyone is monitored all the time and privacy doesn’t exist anymore. We would all be outraged if this type of surveillance happened in our homes, so why is it ok for it to happen in our schools?

Works Cited

“Education.” Volan Technology, 2020, www.volantechnology.com/education.

“Education Safety Technology: School Safety System.” Centegix, 14 Dec. 2020, www.centegix.com/education/.

Fox, Amy Steketee. DA Op-Ed: Surveillance Cameras in School. 16 Mar. 2020, districtadministration.com/surveillance-cameras-in-school/.

“Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Suspending Use and Directing Study of Facial Recognition Technology in Schools .” New York State, 22 Dec. 2020, www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-signs-legislation-suspending-use-and-directing-study-facial-recognition.

Jargon, Julie. “Back to School? Look Out for Covid-Tracking Surveillance Tech.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 11 Aug. 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/back-to-school-look-out-for-covid-tracking-surveillance-tech-11597150800.

Keierleber, Mark. As COVID Creeps into Schools, Surveillance Tech Follows, The 74 Media Inc, 2 Dec. 2020, www.the74million.org/article/as-covid-creeps-into-schools-surveillance-tech-follows/.

Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classics, 1977.

Retta, Mary. “Campuses Are Increasing Student Surveillance During the Pandemic.” Teen Vogue, Condé Nast, 25 Nov. 2020, www.teenvogue.com/story/schools-facial-recognition-covid-19.

“School Safety and Student Privacy: An Introduction.” YouTube, Uploaded by Student Privacy Compass, 3 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CiDniIeE5A.

Waddell, Kaveh. Schools Are Experimenting with AI Surveillance to Bolster Campus Security. 18 Jan. 2019, www.axios.com/ai-video-surveillance-schools-a5845755-9c68-480a-a4d6-5e075a4d17b4.html.