In this episode of EdTech Privacy Parents, Angeline discusses Tom from Belgium's experiences with digital privacy issues in his children’s schools. Tom shares his journey of becoming a privacy champion for his kids, detailing instances of lax security on Chromebooks, basic password issues, and the school's reluctance to take robust privacy actions. He emphasizes the importance of teaching digital literacy from a young age and the potential long-term consequences of neglecting digital privacy. The discussion also highlights parents' challenges in advocating for better privacy practices in an educational setting. Tom's efforts led him to engage with the Belgian data protection authority and push back against poor privacy policies, demonstrating the crucial role of parental involvement in shaping privacy-conscious future generations.

00:00 Introduction to EdTech Privacy Parents

00:37 Tom's Experience with School Tech

01:50 Privacy Concerns with Chromebooks

04:16 Password Issues and Solutions

05:20 Multi-Factor Authentication in Schools

11:34 Monitoring Software Controversy

14:27 The Importance of Digital Literacy

15:42 Real-Life Examples of Privacy Risks

18:41 The Slippery Slope of Surveillance

23:08 Conclusion and Call to Action

Angeline mentions this document about Chromebooks in schools in the episode:

• https://www.vlaanderen.be/publicaties/technische-handleiding-google-workspace-for-education

We can also recommend these articles that explain the issue of content and data sharing.

• Aimed at teens: What You Should Know About School Technology and Data Sharing - Data Girl and Friends
• Aimed at parents: Tech at School: Protecting Your Child's Privacy - ANGELINE CORVAGLIA

 Info on how to request information from schools

• USA: What is a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and how do you make one https://www.foia.gov/how-to.html

In addition, we also recommend these resources:

• Me2B Alliance Product Testing Report on School Mobile Apps Student Data Sharing Behavior: https://internetsafetylabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/school-apps-data-sharing-behavior-spotlight-report-final.pdf
• Edtech law center's resources on issues with edtech: https://edtech.law/issues-with-edtech/

By sharing them, we aim to [00:00:30] motivate other parents to do the same. Hello and welcome to another episode of EdTech Privacy Parents. Today I'm talking to Tom in Belgium, who has had some very interesting experiences with the way tech has been implemented in his children's schools. So, thank you so much for being willing to tell your story, Tom.

So it was not really clear what they had on the, on the Chromebook, what they could do with it, but they were definitely working on it. This might be a silly question, but at that point, did they still have books? Yes, they still had books. [00:01:30] Okay. And, and they do now, if I remember correctly, your kids are like 13 or 14 something now.

Yeah, something like that. They are still using books, so it's not, not purely the printed books or purely the, the, the tech. It's, it's more like a combination of, of everything. Okay. And how's the experience been with tech at school? Obviously you're here because you had some negative experiences. So, I mean, how did it start?

For example, they just used their email address from school that they got assigned. So I was looking a little bit more on what else they could do, and I noticed they, yeah, it's, what they actually got was a basic [00:02:30] configuration Chromebook, no, no privacy settings whatsoever, everything was still fully open.

Slowly, slowly, we are accepting more and more things. And I think in my case, I really said, okay, this is getting too much. When I came back one day years back from a grocery store or a bakery and like when I came home my My phone actually asked me how was your visit to the to the bakery and I was like, okay Why the hell do you need to know what my what my experience was at the bakery?

Yeah. I asked in the elementary school, one of my kids came home and he said, ah, we had some, some issue with the Chromebooks because somebody was posting some things on another one's profile. I said, okay, but how, how is it [00:04:30] possible? Yeah, but we are all using the same passwords. Okay. So I talked to the teacher and I explained, okay, maybe this is not the best idea.

And then she said, yeah, well, you know, it's difficult because maybe they forget the password. And I'm thinking, but there are other solutions. So she changed the passwords. And then I asked my kid, I said, okay, it's okay now. She said, ah, not really, because We all have different passwords, but there is a nice logic in it.

I will put it in a secure place. So if they forget it, I can still easily get them back online. Still not, not the ideal situation, but okay, I can live with that one. So that's, uh, that's already something. But then I, I talked with the middle school, um, on the same thing and I said, okay, but you're also not using multi factor authentication.

I think it's the moment that you have to teach them how to use it, how to use it correctly, and then they will continue to use it in their further life. Otherwise, they are never going to learn it. If they are not going to learn it when they are now at this age, yeah, it's a [00:06:00] lost opportunity. Yes, I fully agree with you.

And that's really, really interesting. This was such a big light bulb moment for me when you explained it, because on the one hand, it's so simple. But then on the other hand, obviously it's not so simple, right? Because I've also heard, you know, kids, they have trouble understanding. There was one parent who said they had the passwords just printed and put on the Chromebook.

So the question is, if they're too young to understand the safety, the basic safety of a device, should they even have the device? It's also part of the [00:07:00] responsibility of the school to take care of these things and explain the differences. But I understand it's not easy for a school to make time for this.

They say, okay, our main role is education. It's not being busy with this one. But I don't really agree with their opinion and that it's their responsibility to teach the children basic security, safety settings of these devices. Yeah, I think so, too, and I think, honestly, I think that should be a given, um, but I do understand that schools are a little bit overwhelmed with it because they're also not prepared.

It's actually, it's quite well made. It's giving quite a lot of interesting insights on what's gathered and what you should not do and what you should do and how you can, how you can make the Chromebooks a little [00:08:00] bit more privacy minded. As an example, they say instead of giving the login credentials for the student.

Don't give name, first name, and then the school just put something else. It's not, uh, don't put the name, put something else. When the schools are saying, ah, but we don't want to reduce a student to a number. No, it's not meaning you need to put a number. You can put whatever you want as long as it's not really the name that's directly linkable to a, to a certain student.

I mean, right at the very beginning of it, it says basically, if you don't [00:09:00] have it, don't implement it, try to avoid it. And they realized because of the privacy. issues. They're just recommending not to use Chromebooks at all in schools. Yeah, that's basically what it says. It says, if you're using Chromebooks, think of an exit strategy.

I mean, obviously, the longer that they're able to get the data, the more money they can make from it, right? Because kids data is, is worth a lot because you're getting them really, really early. Tell us more about the reaction, like other parents and the school, even your kids, what kind of reactions and understanding or non understanding do you get when you try to push these issues?

Okay, the school now started Implementing some of the recommendations and one of them is they shut down all this externals like YouTube And then, um, we were talking about this with my children and [00:10:30] they said, yeah, you know, the teacher wants to show us a small movie. And they said, no, YouTube has to be blocked because there was one parent complaining in the entire school.

And now we had to shut down YouTube. And of course, I have some children saying, yeah, please don't tell to anybody that you did this because we will have a very hard time explaining these to more than 1, 000 students. Why our father asked the school to shut down YouTube. It must be difficult actually to be that one parent.

Because, okay, I had to, because they were not, they were not, uh, school was not really taking me serious. So I filed a complaint with the Belgian data protection authority. So they are now a little bit realizing, okay, I kidded the complaint. It's still [00:11:30] ongoing. So it's a very slow process, but the school is starting to understand.

Okay. Maybe this is not the best idea. And then I had one of my children coming home and they just said, ah, you know, We are now going to install monitoring software on our laptops because too many children are busy watching, uh, football games in, in schools. Uh, we are going to, to work on that one with monitoring software so they can watch from the front of the classroom what we are doing on the laptops.

Yeah, monitoring software, I think this is another thing I've heard quite a bit, the big discussion, right? On the one hand, you have to keep The kids safe. But on the other hand, if you normalize monitoring like that, then as you say, it's a slippery slope and, and you were [00:12:30] explaining that their idea was.

that they would only do the monitoring for laptops that were connected on the school Wi-Fi? Yeah, this was, this was one of the contingency measures to, to please me, because I told them, okay, you can take over the screen of the, of the computer, you can take over the camera. So in theory, when they are with all this homeschool education, you can see what's happening in their, in their house, what's happening in their room.

Okay, but you told me five minutes ago that your Wi-Fi Uh, network is, is not of the greatest quality and that you are allowing students to connect with their hotspots on their phones. Since at the moment they know this, yeah, everybody [00:13:30] will be on this hotspot and your Wi-Fi will be perfect because there is nobody there anymore.

Yeah, yeah, okay, and, and, and it's, it's there for trying to find excuses, and ah, we will only use it during school hours, and we will trust our teachers, and check, you know, it should not be like this, it should not be, uh, if you want to do this, walk around in the classroom, don't, don't put monitoring software, just walk around when they are working, and you can immediately see what they are doing.

That's a really good point. I really love that teacher's solution. When you describe it, it's something that I think every time one of these parents tells me a story. Is that it's a [00:14:30] mess in the sense that that technology is being implemented in school for the sake of digital literacy and getting them prepared for the real world with digital.

The teacher can't realistically manage all those kids where, you know, if it's a parent and the parents can take care of their few kids at home. So it's a really risky situation. It's a, yeah, it's, it's, it's not easy. Is there any like techniques that you've realized work to help, I mean, move forward and in terms of understanding other than just sitting there and explaining?

And give them real life examples. And like I told my kids, I say, okay, oh yeah, but you know, if I'm posting this on the internet, it's no problem. Okay, it's no problem. [00:16:00] Then just give me your phone, unlock your phone and let me look around in your phone for half an hour. No, no, no, no, no, no, you cannot. No, no, this is no, no, no, because I have sent messages to, to other kids and say, yeah, but you see, this is maybe you have nothing to hide, but there are a lot of things you do not want to share with other people.

Of course. I think so too. I was just thinking about that yesterday. Honestly, obviously everyone's talking about TikTok right now because TikTok was closed. Uh, we were recording this a few days after it was closed for like 12 hours in the U. S. and I was thinking the power of influencing from a young age if you have their data and you're collecting it even from school devices.

But about privacy, it's the same thing as like unlocking your phone and giving it to your parents. Yeah, it's a really risky situation. I really hope that that we wake up slowly as a society and [00:17:30] start to really work together and make the tech in schools work properly because that's the basis that they're getting for how, what responsible use is.

That's it. The only thing is to educate them and to, to show them how it should be done and start with the basics. And don't, don't share anything what you don't want to see on the front of the newspaper. Don't just log in with a simple password. Don't use the same passwords everywhere because this is still a thing.

We have to teach them that from the very beginning. We have to respect that, even if it's inconvenient, it's so important. Like, another example I'm giving to people is something, it's not related to schools, but it's like, um, it's the cameras that are popping up everywhere, I don't know, but Belgium has one of the most dense eye and pair camera systems in the world, so they are everywhere.

And then we got on the elections a few months back. You could do like a, uh, a voting test. We had a bunch of questions, and then you had to answer them, and then the, uh, the algorithm was telling you, Okay, from the answers you gave, [00:19:30] This party seems to be matching with your position. It's just a questionnaire.

It has to be on in the morning, things like this. So I said, okay, if you put it too out to outside too early, we will fine you. Yeah, no, of course we don't want that, but this is what's happening. People, governments and communities, they will always find an excuse to use the cameras for more and more and more and more.

On the end of the day, say, okay, thank you very much. And I will think about it, and you go home. Now, in the evening, the salesperson is on your doorstep, ringing your Aya, did you think about the laundry machine? Yeah, first time you say maybe, okay. Next morning, seven in the morning, he's there again. [00:21:00] For three weeks, he's there three times a day.

People are not going to accept this, eh? But people are accepting if you, if you, online you're looking for a laundry machine, and automatically for the next weeks, you are getting nothing but commercials about laundry machines, eh? People are just accepting, you see, it's like, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, it's, I just, it's just clicking it away.

That's, it's actually true. That's not some kind of dystopian. That's something that's already happening. I read about a venue, I think in New York, that they have facial recognition cameras, and they actually use it to people who are banned and they're banned because of where they work. Like there was a story of a [00:22:00] woman who, whose boyfriend bought tickets for a concert and they couldn't get in because she was recognized as working for some law firm that was suing the venue.

And second, that's just a small trigger that in the end will lead them to getting fines for the trash and for not being let into venues. Yeah, no, no, that's it. Yeah, thank you. Actually, it's really inspiring every time I see parents who are just putting their neck out like that. And I hope that if I get in this situation, I also have the courage to do it as [00:23:00] well.

But yeah, we need to do it for our kids, right? No, that's it. That's it. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. We encourage all parents and loved ones to ensure that the digital footprints their children create at school are treated with the respect and care they deserve. If your school or area hasn't yet leaned heavily into technology at school, we hope these stories will help you ask the right questions when they do.