Technology

It's not just devices on loan from the schools.

Whether on school-issued devices or downloaded onto students’ own, these software tools do not disclose the source code of their software nor how they prioritize student information for review and reporting, leaving parents, students, and even school administrators ignorant of what the privacy concerns even are before they can begin working for mitigation. But what is known is not good. A.I. automation tools, such as those used by Gaggle, are rife with broken promises about accuracy. They often have fundamental racial and gender biases. A consequence of using these tools to monitor students’ online content is that they will disproportionately affect people of color and marginalized groups.

If you have your own computer, and don't want to use the school one, they would have you install the software on your own machine. It's not clear why parents or students would consent to that. It was probably something like, you need to use MS Word or Google docs for your homework so you need to install this software to do so.

The use of Gaggle has resulted in the constant monitoring of students through their Gmail and Microsoft Office accounts, even when at home using personal devices. Gaggle even monitors in real time the content being written by students on Google Docs.

The level of surveillance is breathtaking.