It's not remote learning that enabled this, it's educational institution malware.

Old news (2022) but still dystopian.

OK...i dony have kids, but even if you ignore the anti gay/trans aspect of it, this is fucking creepy, right? Like this seems like an unacceptable level of intrusion into a child's life. I find it staggering that this just kind of happened and it wasnt front and center news everywhere!
Absolute clown shoes level of crazy.

When I was that age I was already "18" when online. I watched way too much explicit content back then. I think I could’ve been in therapy…

If it's your only computer, you may not have a choice, and we're talking about kids here, who are stuck with what their parents do or don't buy them. I can easily see a teen in a lower-income household being stuck between a rock and a hard place here.

As soon as the kids are the school find this out I guarantee every single one of them will write queer or trans on the laptop, the system will get flooded and they will have to stop

I think im starting to understand our youth. Privacy is really important for people to feel safe, and as a kid you are not equipped with the knowledge or resources to create it for yourself, it has to be given to you. Anyone who survives this oppression into adulthood is going to be warped in some way.

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.

One thing that occurs to me, that is not mentioned in the article, is the data mining and retention. Companies like Gaggle are no doubt keeping all the data they are getting. It will be sold and used in the future. The data would be a treasure trove for advertisers and political organizations. I foresee a Cambridge Analytica for a new generation.

Also, it may sound like science fiction, but the idea of using machine learning with this and data collected in the future to generate algorithms to predict future behavior and attitudes based on childhood writings and online behavior is probably on these companies drawing boards.

My son uses his school provided chronebook to do the shit he wouldn’t do on computers that I administer …. Their “threat” model varies wildly from ours.