“Who’s Watching Big Data?” by cogdogblog is licensed under CC0 1.0
This week, I read the paper, Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking (Regan & Jesse, 2019). I also read the blog post, We Need A Massive Surveillance Program. The Regan and Jesse paper talks about the ethical impact of educational technology and big data. They raise six privacy concerns: information privacy, anonymity, surveillance, autonomy, non-discrimination, and ownership of information. It is an alarming paper because it seems to confirm what I have long suspected, anyone who really wants my data can get it regardless of how I feel about it. For ordinary people like me, the only solace is believing that no one is likely to be all that interested in attaching my data to me personally. There are people who are so far advanced in their computer skills, it would be easier to get rid of my cell phone and go live off the grid in the woods than it would be to protect my data from those who want so badly to use it.
Thank goodness for people like Maciej Cegłowski, who defines himself as a privacy activist. These are the people with the knowledge to really battle big data. The best I can do for myself is read the privacy agreements on the apps I choose to use, be critical of what advertising or click-bait comes my way, and be wary of what I am putting out into the world. As an educator, however, it’s a different story.
As a teacher, I rely largely on the expertise of the information technology (IT) staff at the school district office. Even so, when they came along this week and said I cannot use Zoom for conferencing with my home-bound kindergarten class, I was irked. At first the reason appeared to be the threat of Zoombombing and I was convinced I had it licked when I figured out the safety settings from the Zoom website. Then it came down that the provincial government had purchased licences and I thought, surely now, I could have some face-to-face time with the littles. But, no. Our district claims they need to wait for actual access and then conduct their own analysis. Again, irked.
“Maple Leaf Forever.” by Just a Prairie Boy is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Along with the latest news also came the revelation that Zoom stores its data in the United States and the new licensed version would store our data in Canada. UGH…okaaaay. I have heard this argument before. When the district was pushing us toward FreshGrade, stored in Canada, rather than Seesaw, which is stored in the U.S., I was not happy. I found Seesaw to be a simpler tool than FreshGrade just as I see Zoom to be a simpler tool than Microsoft Teams, which the school district supports.
Then there’s Google. The district is apparently letting this one go because there is no alternative readily available. The district solution to possible privacy issues with Google was to make guardians of our students sign a permission form. That way, the liability lies with the adults responsible for their children. However, I doubt very much that many of these responsible adults have any idea what the possible issues are with exposing their children’s data. Parents place a lot of trust in the teacher’s knowledge when it comes to internet safety and privacy (Knauf, 2016). They do not know that I knew about as much as anyone up until a few months ago. Even now, while I have come to believe that I should do my best to protect my data and my students’ data, I am not sure I know what data is being collected and what is being used for. I am not sure guardians of my students should be trusting me when it comes to these things. It makes me wonder how much the IT staff really know. Is it worth the worry if data can be reidentified anyway? Is it enough to teach people how to protect themselves from criminal activity?
As an educator, my concern needs to lie with protecting children as well as I can and fostering the development of humans who are critical of the information that travels to and fro on the internet so at some point, the government will be overwhelmed by their demands for data protection. We need more people to become privacy activists. For my part, I will teach digital literacy to my students while taking care to maintain their privacy as well as possible. If I must publish their work, let it be on a password protected site storing its data in Canada. If students need to communicate over distance, let it be over district approved, data stored in Canada video conferencing site or email. I will do the best I can with what I know, even if it is irksome.
As for Cegłowski’s suggestion that the fight against COVID-19 would benefit from a massive surveillance program. If it saves lives, I am all for it. If it is true that the necessary data is already being collected then do it. That said, I would like to think that Cegłowski’s blog post is based in the U.S. and no such surveillance exists here in Canada though. I would like to think that Canada is the moral centre of the digital world and that all data is safe here. Wouldn’t that be nice?
References
Cegłowski, M. (2020, March 23). We Need A Massive Surveillance Program (Idle Words). https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance_program.htm
Knauf, H. (2016). Interlaced social worlds: Exploring the use of social media in the kindergarten. Early Years, 36(3), 254–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2016.1147424
Regan, P. M., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2
I have a love/hate relationship with google. It does provide great educational services but I do wonder about student information. My district also allows google educational use and I do use it. Still, as you note, I am not sure parents understand the concerns that they maybe should have about using google.