<
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/mandatory-student-spyware-creating-perfect-storm-human-rights-abuses>
"Spyware apps were foisted on students at the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Today, long after most students have returned to in-person learning, those apps
are still proliferating, and enabling an ever-expanding range of human rights
abuses. In a recent Center for Democracy and Technology report, 81 percent of
teachers said their schools use some form of this "student monitoring" spyware.
Yet many of the spyware companies supplying these apps seem neither prepared
nor concerned about the harms they are inflicting on students.
These student spyware apps promise scalable surveillance-as-a-service. The lure
of “scalability” is a well-documented source of risk to marginalized users,
whose needs for individualized consideration are overshadowed by the prospect
of building mass-scale, one-size-fits-all “solutions” to social problems. The
problems of scale are dangerously exacerbated by laws that disparately impact
marginalized communities.
Today, Americans face an unprecedented, record-breaking wave of legislation
targeting transgender youth: from sports bans, to speech and literature bans,
to the criminalization of life-saving healthcare, all on top of the widespread
practices of locker-room- and bathroom-bans.
And it’s not just trans kids in the crosshairs:
Roe v. Wade, the Supreme
Court precedent that protects the right to have an abortion, is likely about to
be overturned.
That means that students who use their devices to research trans healthcare or
abortion related material could find those devices weaponized against them,
potentially resulting in criminal charges. If prosecutors consider charges
against students, the data gathered by mandatory student spyware apps like
Bark, Gaggle, GoGuardian, and Securly will prove invaluable."
Via Rixty Dixet and also Susan ✶✶✶✶
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
