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Comment by ssss11 | Hacker News Reader

That’s my biggest concern. Schools have no idea.

I've worked in the education sector—at least in the US there are well known data protection laws that schools very much do know about and attempt to comply with. It's not quite HIPAA levels of serious, but they do take it seriously, and as another commenter notes Google actually does comply.

I remember a teacher telling us that parents should not check their kids Google classroom accounts because it would be a violation of the other students’ privacy. I understand what they were saying but there’s no way I’m not checking my kid’s Google classroom account. Ridiculous.

I was offered a job by a large ed tech company that has all sorts of data including parent teacher communications, grades, hourly attendance, etc. For millions of students enrolled in k12 programs in the USA. I initially accepted but then they wanted me to build an early warning system to predict whether a student would have a behavioural problem on the next day. I quit because I do not find it moral to build panopticons for children. But I'm sure they found someone to replace me.

Good job. I’ve quit a job similarly over ethical issues. But this is the problem with software engineering lacking an ethical standard: there’s always Bob, three desks down, who is willing to build the Torment Nexus. One person’s ethical stand is meaningless.

Thanks. When I quit that job I didn't really have any other option lined up. But I had just finished my PhD and someone there at the university offered me a postdoc for six months and then I won a little grant that let me stay like another year and then I won another one for 3 years, and I started working at an AI company in my city. But at the time I was like, fuck now what am I going to do? Haha.

lmao! I apologize, I really do. I know Dang says NO to snark but "data protection laws" for students?! Despite lobbying against it, my school uses the King of All Evil software suites GoGuardian.

"GoGuardian Beacon continuously monitors online activity across school-issued devices, search engines, web apps, Gmail, and more to proactively detect concerning behavior." - What data is being protected? It's being collected and analyzed by everyone but the child's parents.. All you have to do is whisper s a f e t y . . . and data protection is tossed out the window.

I just hope you people are being paid to defend these immoral monstrosities. Google, Microsoft, Meta etc comply with nothing. They just pay a miniscule fine when outed a decade later.

Certainly not siding with Big G here, but the onus is on the school. They should be able to be held accountable.

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