Schools use internet to spy on students
August 13, 2011 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
SCHOOLS are using internet monitoring companies to read what students are saying on social networking sites.
The typical service used by schools such as Ascham looks at any publicly available material posted on sites such as Facebook, Formspring and Tumblr to monitor the sometimes ferocious use of the media by young people.
”We go where the conversations are, where young people or communities of interest are coalescing online,” says James Griffin, a partner in SR7. The company’s service does not intercept private messages, although some technology using keyword searches is able to do this.
Mr Griffin said Formspring allowed anonymous postings on the wall of identified hosts, which could then be seen by their friends, making it a standout tool for cyber-bullying.
Ascham is one of several private schools monitoring what their students do online at home or, with smartphones, literally anywhere. Ascham girls are not allowed to use social networking sites at school.
The director of students for years 11 and 12, Frances Booth, said: ”We know it’s become pretty much the essential way of communicating for this generation of students and we understand it’s a big part of their lives. But we’re also aware of the dangers that can come from unrestrained use.
”They’re aware we keep an eye on what they’re up to. All we want is for them to be safe.”
Other schools rely on students or parents to monitor postings. Stephen Harris, the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School, is ready to phone parents late at night if their children have posted something inappropriate, to make them take it down immediately. ”Our school policy now extends the concept
of the school playground to any environment in the social media platform where a student of the school or a teacher is identified by either name, image or inference,” he said.
Public schools are also stepping into what had previously been held to be either private or the domain of parents.
While social networking sites are not accessible from school computers, Lila Mularczyk, the deputy president of the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council, recently argued that cyber-bullying connected with school was treated in the same way, no matter when it occurred.
”If the out-of-hours harassment is an extension of school relationships or a school event, that is [considered] part of the school day,” she said.
Mrs Booth said: ”We monitor the girls’ usage of the internet both internally and externally, not because we want to stop them but because we want them to use it in a safe manner.
”We don’t want them putting things out there that might put them in danger.”
But Cameron Murphy, the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said that the monitoring was an ”outrageous invasion” of students’ privacy.
”Just because students may discuss things about school over the phone at night, it wouldn’t be appropriate or lawful for a school to tap someone’s phone and make decisions about them on that basis. Just because it happens to be a social networking site, it shouldn’t be any different,” he said.
But Mr Griffin, of SR7, said schools must act out of a duty of care to their students.
”Social media and cyber-bullying is simply an issue of the modern day that schools have to acknowledge and understand they can do something about,” he said.
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