Cory Doctorow writes: Rutgers students taking exams are required to pay $32 in fees for Verificient’s Proctortrack, an anti-cheating program that collects, audio, video, web activity and “scans the ID, face and knuckles” as well as voice-prints. Rutgers entered into a hasty “verbal agreement” with Proctortrack last spring, which was turned into a retroactive contract…
Category: Youth & Schools
Is Google’s signing of the Student Privacy Pledge meaningful at all?
Although Google did not initially embrace the Student Privacy Pledge, in January, it announced that it had signed it. So why did @Parents4Privacy’s child see this screen when their child was logged into Google Apps for Education (GAFE)? The Student Privacy Pledge pledges, in part, that school service providers will: Not sell student information Not behaviorally target advertising…
MD: Montgomery County Public Schools use software that monitor student computer use
Kumar Singam reports: Reliable sources have informed the Examiner that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), the largest school system in Maryland, has installed LanSchool in Chromebooks distributed to students. […] As the product brochure disarmingly mentions, LanSchool can be used for real-time monitoring of student activity on the computer. The website states that “Thumbnail monitoring allows the teacher to quickly view…
Judge orders Reed College to cough up student and alumni disciplinary files in sex and drug lawsuit
Bryan Denson reports: The sex-and-drugs case of John Doe v. Reed College took a peculiar turn this week when a federal judge ordered the school to turn over nearly seven years of student disciplinary files to lawyers in the case. U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman’s five-page order Tuesday spells out specific records sought about current and…