To Surveil or Not to Surveil; Monitoring Students’ Social Media
By Elissa-Beth Gross
We’ve come a long way from the days of simply warning our kids to keep their Facebook page on the up and up, especially as they apply to colleges and look for jobs. For various reasons on the campus and in our private lives, surveillance is becoming ubiquitous. There are two schools of thought regarding the monitoring of students’ social media by educational institutions in order to boost security; either invading a minor’s privacy is a small price to pay for safety, or this is just one more way to profile and discriminate against minority students and marginalized communities.
The Miami-Dade County school system has asked for $30 million dollars in upgrades that include “advanced monitoring of social media,” while schools in California, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia have indicated that social media monitoring -- including by third-party companies -- is a key security feature. It's yet to be established that monitoring prevents major incidents from occurring, or that it represents the best use of limited funds available for security. There are financial and technical challenges as well, such as the need for dedicated staff to filter out false alerts. “Kill me now” is used to end a chat, while KMS or “killing myself” is typically used jokingly and not as a suicide address. Special training is needed just to keep up with the lingo teens and gangs use, including their nicknames for illicit drugs. It’s easy to see how kids discussing their Chemistry homework would get flagged.
How would you feel if your child’s school demanded students’ login credentials, or hacked their private conversations?
As of now, federal student privacy laws fail to address social media surveillance legislation, and few states prevent schools from accessing public-facing accounts. Monitoring programs could be implemented with so called ethical restrictions, for example, they could surveil just those individuals with recent episodes of concerning behavior; just test takers, or ticketholders to events in order to apply controls. What about false accusations and convictions that could arise from surveillance? What about the kid that was found just in time, with a belt around his or her neck because a post triggered an alert in time for an efficient response (yes, this really happened according to one monitoring service provider)?
Prior to monitoring students’ social media, a reasonable care campus develops data collection, use, and retention policy, and may consider an opt-in/opt-out strategy. Most violent crimes are preceded by clues of the impending event, and an increasing number of serious school safety incidents are pre-announced on social media and gaming platforms. As part of growth and development, young people need to be able to feel safe sharing their feelings within their friend circle. States should update Student Records Laws, and the Dept. of Education should clarify the relationship between educational records and students’ social media under FERPA. When deciding to surveil or not to surveil, states, school districts and campus administrators should always put duty of care and in loco parentis first.
1. Keeping It Off the Record: Student Social Media Monitoring and the Need for Updated Student Records Law. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law, Volume 22, Issue 1 – 2019
2. ©2016, Bradshaw, Alex. States Take Steps to Limit School Surveillance of Student Social Media Pages. Center for Democracy and Technology.
3. ©2013, Martinez, Michael. California School District Hires Firm to Monitor Students’ Social Media. CNN.
4. Patel, F., Levinson-Waldman, R. Schools: Social Media Monitoring. Brennan Ctr for Justice