FITSForum: Parental Solutions Needed as Digital Influence Expands

Is this what your school is doing to your child? “AI student surveillance software has broad collection capabilities, and student data collected by AI student surveillance software is not kept private. These capabilities combined with the lack of data privacy can harm the very children the companies claim to protect.” More than likely the answer is yes and you don’t know what is going on….Perhaps the highest price paid for EdTech surveillance software is that a generation of students is consequently being raised in a surveillance culture. They are being trained to believe that their society and peers are inherently dangerous, and for some it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…. “School districts should not view EdTech Surveillance companies as their allies, partners, or saviors in pursuing that [safety] goal. Each is simply a company trying to sell you a product. No more and no less.”….Over the last two decades, a segment of the educational technology (EdTech) sector that markets student surveillance products to schools — the EdTech Surveillance industry — has grown into a $3.1 billion a year economic juggernaut with a projected 8% annual growth rate.1 The EdTech Surveillance industry accomplished that feat by playing on school districts’ fears of school shootings, student self-harm and suicides, and bullying — marketing them as common, ever-present threats. Check out Truth In Education and the article Would You Say the Same Things if You Knew an Algorithm Was watching?