We live in an age of student surveillance. Once student surveillance just involved on-campus video cameras, school resource officers, and tip lines, but now, it extends beyond school hours and premises. Corporate monitoring software, installed on school-provided laptops, does two things. First, it blocks “objectionable” material, informing administrators about content that students tried to access. Second, it scans students’ searches, browsing, files, emails, chats, and geolocation to detect “problematic” material. For many students, school-provided laptops are their only computing device. They use that device to complete homework, as they must; they use it to chat with friends, explore ideas, and play. For those students, the surveillance is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Totalizing surveillance makes student intimate privacy impossible and undermines the school’s crucial role in educating democratic citizens. Student surveillance chills children’s willingness to engage in expressive activities, including experimenting with nonmainstream ideas. Self-censorship is even more likely for disabled and LGBTQ+ students who fear judgment and reprisal. Student surveillance corrodes students’ relationships with teachers. It raises the risk of suspension for Black and Hispanic students for minor infractions like profanity, a blow to equality. Companies promise that their surveillance systems can detect suicidal ideation, threats, and bullying, but little evidence shows that they work as intended. We need robust, substantive protections for student intimate privacy for the good of free expression, democracy, and equality. Schools should not use surveillance software unless companies can show that the continuous tracking makes students safer and is designed to minimize the harm to privacy, expression, and equality.