School-based online surveillance companies watch children 24/7, study finds
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- An assessment of online surveillance services used in middle and high schools found that companies who offer these services continue to follow students' digital behavior once they leave the classrooms.
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That is according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, which was recently published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.
Researchers searched GovSpend and EdSurge's Education Technology Index to identify which companies offer school-based social media monitoring, student communications monitoring or online monitoring.
The team identified 14 companies that were actively marketing online surveillance services, most of which "facilitate school administrators' access to students' digital behavior, well beyond monitoring during school hours and on school-provided devices."
Specifically, almost all of the companies in the study reported monitoring students at school, but 86% of them reported also monitoring students 24/7 outside of school. Meanwhile, 7% reported monitoring outside of school at school administrator-specified locations, according to the study.
"Findings suggest that students who only have school-provided devices are more heavily surveilled and that historically marginalized students may be at a higher risk of being flagged due to algorithmic bias," the study said.
About 71% of the companies use artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically flag "concerning activity," while less than half (43%) use human review teams.
The authors of the study hope their findings can help parents and educators be more aware of school-based online monitoring services.
