Remote learning companies have been helping schools spy on kids via their computers
In March 2020, Miami-Dade Public Schools closed for two weeks at the start of the coronavirus “pandemic” at which time the district decided to do away with in-person learning in favor of a remote learning system that we have now learned was used to help schools spy on kids without their or their parents’ knowledge.
As we all know, “two-weeks” to flatten the curve turned into two years and counting, making this new revelation even more troubling (via The Miami Herald):
Many of the same platforms used to support teaching during what turned out to be nearly two years of at-home learning tracked students without their knowledge and shared that data with big tech companies like Facebook and Google, which could monetize the students’ information by selling ads to companies that targeted the children, according to a newly released report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.
The report found that many or most of the online platforms used globally, including those used in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, did the following:
▪ “Monitored children, secretly and without the consent of their parents,” collecting data about them, their families and what they did in the classroom.
▪ Installed tracking technologies that, over time, followed children’s’ activities outside of classrooms.
▪ Allowed advertising technology companies to access children’s data, which, over time, could be sold to later “target them with personalized context that follow them across the internet [that] distorted children’s online experiences, but also threatened to influence their opinion and beliefs.”
▪ Few apps made public how outside companies would use the collected information.
▪ The majority of products examined “did not offer data protections specific to children.”
Of the apps that were analyzed, the report found that nearly 90% were designed to collect and send students’ information to outside companies, such as Facebook and Google, researchers found. In total, students’ information was sent to nearly 200 advertising technology companies. The report did not determine what data specifically was collected and shared, though it did show what data the apps were intended to collect and where it would be sent, which raises concerns.
“Put another way, children are surveilled in their virtual classrooms and followed long after they leave, outside of school hours and across the internet,” wrote Hye Jung Han, the report’s lead researcher. (Emphasis mine)
Looks like the World Health Organization’ plan for a global tracking system is getting a head start thanks to remote learning.
To those paying attention — or at the very least reading The Strident Conservative 😉 — revelations that remote learning companies have been helping schools spy in your kids should come as no surprise.
Throughout the two-plus years of COVID tyranny, school districts across the country were faced with an explosion of student suicides following their decision to shut down schools and force children to learn at home, and instead of fully reopening schools, administrators decided to leverage the suicide problem into an opportunity to spy on kids via their remote learning computers.
For example, in January 2021, it was revealed that the Clark County School District in Las Vega, NV was using a new artificial intelligence (AI) software program that made spying on kids via their government-issued remote learning computers as easy as clicking a mouse. Using a new technology called GoGuardian Beacon, “the program monitors student’s school-provided laptop and tablet for any mention of self-harm.”
In order to intervene on the suicides, the school district now has implemented technology called GoGuardian Beacon.
According to GoGuardian’s website, “the technology is a suicide and self-harm prevention solution that leverages a combination of artificial intelligence and human insight.” The program monitors student’s school-provided laptop and tablet for any mention of self-harm. It then alerts teachers about students who are thought to be at immediate risk.
“You get the calls, you get the text messages late into the evening, kids are surfing and online and then we dispatch our police department to do wellness checks,” Dr. Jara said on Fox News. (Emphasis mine)
I don’t want you to miss this. The AI program was used to monitor the government-provided laptops and tablets of every student in search of certain words or other information it believes will lead to self-harm. If it found any, it notified a teacher who then sent police to the home of the student to do a “wellness check.”
Remote learning has literally been killing our children ever since COVID tyranny reared its globalist head over two years ago, and in the words of Dr. Katarina Lindley, a Texas physician who lived in Yugoslavia as a child, the so-called pandemic and remote learning are also killing liberty:
“These events remind me of my challenging childhood in Yugoslavia – which was characterized by government control and the suppression of individual freedoms. Sadly, the U.S. is inching in that direction with every additional pandemic rule and restriction. I wake up every morning wondering how many rights we will lose today in the name of fighting COVID-19.” (Emphasis mine)
Not to worry though. Thanks to remote learning software designed to help schools spy on our kids via their computers, the public-school bureaucrats, teachers, and teacher’s labor unions responsible for educating our kids can at least pretend they’re looking out for them.
You can almost see Big Brother smiling now, can’t you?
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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