Quentyn Taylor comments on a news story in the UK about how educators will be granted ridiculously expansive search and seizure rights in the UK:
Reading the BBC today I noticed this little gem, that is a change to the Education Bill that would allow teachers greater powers over students mobile phones in order to combatterrorism cyber bullying. The report (on the BBC) states that in the new bill ( to be debated next week) teachers will be allowed to
“to search for phones without consent in a bid to combat cyber-bullying. The Education Bill, …. also allows heads to delete data from the phones.”
Lets read that one more time, teachers will be allowed to search the phone and delete content. Note that even RIPA does not go this far, will teachers have such due process ? Will there be an appeals process ? what happens if the phone is locked ? Can the teacher demand that the phone is unlocked ? What happens if the phone receives a remote wipe command whilst confiscated ? Note that the ability to be able to snoop on the contents of their lunch boxes is being removed…
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