We speak with Albert Fox Cahn and Sarah Roth of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or S.T.O.P., about the increasing use of surveillance technology to track students. Claiming their technology can predict who will be a threat to themselves or the school, companies market programs that report to school officials on students’ keystrokes, words, and behaviors. School officials can provide it to law enforcement or parents.

Overview

00:00-00:41 Intros
00:41-02:27 Who is surveilling K-12 students and why?
02:27-05:49 Who is collecting the data, where it goes, how it impacts students?
05:49-08:03 Implications of students self-identifying as queer in Florida and elsewhere
08:03-10:08 How are risk factors determined?
10:08-12:37 Surveillance technology and School Resource Officers (SROs)
12:37-14:18 Are parents aware of their students’ surveillance?
14:18-16:28 Legal challenges
16:28-18:26 Using FOIA/FOIL to get information about surveillance
18:26-21:16 Facial recognition
21:16-21:40 Gaggle as enhancement to SRO in Minneapolis
21:40-23:51 Biases
23:51-24:45 Federal promotion of surveillance
24:45-27:39 Adoption of technology in classrooms and for measuring “productivity”
27:39- Outro

Transcript

Click here to see the full transcription of this episode. 

References

Surveillance Technology Oversight Project S.T.O.P. website

Soundtrack by Poddington Bear