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Google Is Collecting Information On Public School Students – Here's How

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

As a new parent, the idea of sending my children to public school is a frightening thought. The more you read, the more you realize the importance of extreme vigilance when it comes to what’s happening at whatever place you send your kids to for majority of their day. Quite often, parents are simply left completely in the dark about some very important matters.

One such example relates to Google’s penetration of the U.S. public school system, and how the company employs a loophole in order to collect data on children. Google achieves this by referring to itself as a “school official” under the law. I truly wish I was making this up.

From the Washington Post:

Google is a major player in U.S. education. In fact, in many public schools around the country, it’s technically a “school official.” And that designation means parents may not get a chance to opt out of having information about their children shared with the online advertising giant. 

 

The combined allure of Google’s free suite of productivity tools and cheap laptops that use the company’s Web-based ChromeOS operating system have made Google’s products a popular choice at schools around the country. And the company’s growing dominance is raising concern from some privacy advocates who allege it is using some student data for its own benefit.

 

Google’s standard agreement for providing its education suite defines the company as a “school official” for the purpose of that student privacy law. In Google’s case, the company is providing software that districts might otherwise have to develop or support themselves, such as email services or tools that help students digitally collaborate on assignments.

 

But schools are supposed to have “direct control” of how a company or individual uses and maintains education records to deem them a “school official,” according to the department’s regulation. Khaliah Barnes, an associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center or EPIC, argues that isn’t happening with many ed tech providers, including Google.

 

“The schools don’t have access to Google’s servers or a lot of the way that it uses the information because it is proprietary,” she said. In 2012, EPIC brought a lawsuit against the Education Department in an attempt to stop the government from interpreting the law in ways it argued could allow schools to share more data about students with less explicit consent, but the case was later dismissed on standing grounds.

Why am I not surprised in the least.

Today, Google and many other tech companies are increasingly part of students’ daily classroom lives under the “school official” designation. And that leaves parents in the dark about who has access to an increasingly large cache of information about their children and may compromise their privacy down the line, experts say. But as previously reported, Google said it has “always been firmly committed to keeping student information private and secure.”

Private and secure, ok, but they are still collecting this data aren’t they? They are still essentially tracking the activity of little children without their consent or parental consent, are they not?

Even 20 years ago, parents really didn’t expect schools to track more than basic information about their children’s school performance — things like attendance and test scores. But the latest generation of educational tech products are cataloging a nearly limitless amount of data on what students do everyday — from emails and chats, to metadata, such as location history, that educators may not even realize is being collected, Barnes said.

 

“The companies themselves aren’t transparent, and often times schools even aren’t aware of the extent of data collection,” Barnes said.

 

“School districts are just generally not providing notice to parents,” said Reidenberg.

You’ve been warned.

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Sun, 01/03/2016 - 06:41 | 6990170 Big Corked Boots
Big Corked Boots's picture

That's why I grow my own. 

Although I did leave the seed potatoes unattended for fifteen minutes last season.....

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 21:56 | 6989700 GhostOfDiogenes
GhostOfDiogenes's picture

Oy vey google is run by jews so your children are safe because they are gods chosen jews would never do anything nefarious oy vey remember the holocaust send shekels to israel like good goyim!

https://ronabbass.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/jewish-control-of-the-interne...

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 22:09 | 6989733 jmaloy5365
jmaloy5365's picture

Google was created by and for the government along with all the other forms of social media.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 22:19 | 6989755 Moccasin
Moccasin's picture

not true, but all have been co-oped and coerced to cooperate.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 22:37 | 6989799 robnume
robnume's picture

Google is the EVIL Corporation. Must've been started by one of the Dulles brothers.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:01 | 6989844 TurnwiseWiddershins
TurnwiseWiddershins's picture

http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Anniversary/dp/...

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qw8BpfDZL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200...

DUMBING US DOWN.

It's designed and planned, has been for ages.  Government schools are not intended to produce creative, intelligent, critical, analytic, independent, etc. kids. 

Government schools teach dependence, obedience, and kowtowing to authority for grades/stars/cookies/privileges/awards/etc.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:24 | 6989882 bub
bub's picture

Just about every public school has Google Chromebooks for use by students, starting at 4th grade, maybe earlier.  

 

The NWO-interests in public education love the near giveaway prices for the Chromebooks and of course EVERYTHING is tied to a Google account.

 

Your IP address provided by your internet provider is roughly associated with a city where you live and your WiFi router in your house helps provide pinpoint accuracy to where you are.  

 

If your child logs into his/her public school account from home, the association of your child to your house (via your internet IP, your WiFI, cookies) is made and more information about your household is able to be derived by associative data.  Dozens+ of data points are "triangulated" (and stored forever) based on your login, the sites you visit, your IP address, cookies, etc.  

 

Got a smart TV with WiFi and watch shows via your internet connection?  If so, you have given up just about everything there is to know about who you are.  Remember those 10 page terms of service agreements that everyone scrolls past instead of reading before hitting the "Accept" button - that's where you gave up your permission to cry foul.  Especially the "free" email by yahoo, microsoft, google - and whatever data collected by companies that they acquired over the years before people started thinking twice about privacy.

 

Everything online has interlocking pieces - cookies, your IP address, your smartphone, your WiFi, Bluetooth - it will never stop until you completely disconnect from "the Internet" and never use it again...  yeah, like that's gonna happen.

 

Bluetooth in your car or your phone is an excellent substitute for RFID...  or your kids' phones and similar devices.  bluetooth low energy beacons are the new craze.

 

A typical month's worth of this kind of tracking data would easily fit on a single floppy disk sold in 1995 and the money made from that data easily pays for the cost to store it.

 

This isn't conspiracy theory fodder - it's standard operating procedure already.  

 

 

Articles like this one that bitch about Google are founded in ignorance - public school students are just one of many pathways to collecting information about yourself and your family.  Privacy (as we would prefer to have it) is gone.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:48 | 6989934 dreadnaught
dreadnaught's picture

Hmm....Microsoft is reduced to giving away their 'Surface" tablet when you buy specailly marked boxes of Kelloggs Fruit Loops, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Crispies etc

 

Going the way of the Zune it seems LOL,

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 16:27 | 6991818 BarkingCat
BarkingCat's picture

Good. I hate that fucking company. They were the original evil empire in the tech world. I only wih that Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Balmer follow Steve Jobs off the world.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:29 | 6989892 Clowns on Acid
Clowns on Acid's picture

If you like your Google ... you can keep your Google !

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:34 | 6989905 Fuku Ben
Fuku Ben's picture

Poor children are now being actively farmed from cradle to grave as free human resource slaves of criminal corporations and governments (aka corporations). That is when they're not being injected with enough poisons in vaccines to autism, brain damage or cancer. Or being filled with enough hormone disruptors in processed foods and chemical compounds in everyday products to turn boys into girls and girls into boys by the time they are a teen.

The best thing to do is free yourself from slavery, then home birth your child and never register them, never get them a social security number or accept any benefit from a corporation/government, home school them and you'll be sending them off to college at 15. Ditch the TV, read, eat organic whole foods, exercise your body, your mind and spirit, and detoxify yourself regularly. And for G-d's sake be sure they know what that black cube on their head and black robe they wear at graduation really means.

Sat, 01/02/2016 - 23:58 | 6989955 pitz
pitz's picture

Forcing a kid into public schools, or to use Google is child abuse. 

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 00:37 | 6990006 redwater
redwater's picture

Google boys are very active politically. Lots of projects tie in to government money train and getting the most virulant sociopaths elected to office.

 

They've had a pretty active history working for the spooks too. Like the wifi data software spycraft they were caught using a few years ago. And their employees doing foreign intelligence gathering.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 02:57 | 6990079 Lost in translation
Lost in translation's picture

Need suggestions, recommendations, please.

Currently using gmail, want OUT. But Yahoo and MS email services are just as bad.

Can any of you fine ZHers please recommend a suitable alternative for personal email?

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 04:36 | 6990108 Infinite QE
Infinite QE's picture

Hushmail.com

Wed, 01/06/2016 - 01:55 | 7003472 Lost in translation
Lost in translation's picture

Thanks, guys!

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:40 | 6990257 My Days Are Get...
My Days Are Getting Fewer's picture

thunderbird

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 04:53 | 6990115 Tree-hugging Ne...
Tree-hugging Negromancer's picture

The Government training facilities are owned and bought by the Virginia Company to mold and shape those innocent young into mindless commodities to be used and discarded when the stone is dry. As for this, this is something that I have personally never expected, the expansion of the Technocracy or evolved police state into something more bold, more dangerous. Our corporation the U.S although never ceases to surprise me in the end, as our wonderful Hitlery and Obotcher i.e Lord of the Flies proves on a daily basis that American Expectionalism is not to cease but to increase. Condolences to our wonderous liberating document The Constitution and to this corporation as it will fall due to nuclear holocaust with Russia/China(hopefully) alas, we wait for this day of liberation by those generous foreign lands.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 06:13 | 6990150 White Mountains
White Mountains's picture

All  this info is collected on every American, and then can later on be used to blackmail anyone in public office.  Notice how nearly every rats ass scheme gets passed by congress?  They've got something on many of the members of congress.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 06:27 | 6990161 Last of the Mid...
Last of the Middle Class's picture

Bill Gates is the one who started the national database on every child, Google is second to the party there.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 06:33 | 6990165 kingvaclav
kingvaclav's picture

Positons on Privacy and Free Speech by Key Jewish Heavyweights:  http://winteractionables.com/?p=29241

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:01 | 6990185 Wow72
Wow72's picture

Tech is ruining America, as good as tech can be, TECH really sucks... Its very dangerous in the hands of mere mortals.  Its extremely dangerous in the hands of people who have no oversight.  I cant wait till the first billionaire gets their first human destroying droid, oh the fun we are going to have.  Tech at this point equals more power for the tyrants, the population should start to pay attention because tech will give the super wealthy yet another unfair advantage over the people.  We know just how nice and caring our super greedy are dont we?  If you think they are sucking the life out of us now, just wait.

an iphone is just an attention span destroyer.  As a United States Citizen I would fear tech in the system we are currently in.  It may not be tomorrow, but soon beware of tech.  Tech will literally be the end of humans as we know them?  The techies know and admit this.  They say eventually we will be part human and machine??? Full speed ahead on the Ship of Fools!  Tech has reached the point where it is extremely subtle and extremely dangerous in the wrong hands, people in America are way too trusting of our current system of outlaws.  My advice is be very aware of tech.  This includes everything from vaccines to machines. 

Beware of Gates innocent geeky look,  You dont get to be number 1 by being a "nice" guy?  Would you take a vaccine from Bill Gates? I would think seriously about it before you do.  Gates was forced by the Government to bail out his competition Apple.  Free market at work?  He had such a monopoly on the operating system market, the gov made him bail Apple out, Apple wouldnt even be here had it not been for government intervention? True captialism?  Gates has an inferior operating system and he is just ruthless enough to have forced it to the top... Windows Sucks!   START TO USE LINUX! SAY NO TO WINDOWS 10!!!!!! Windows 10 will report most everything you do MS? FUCK THEM.  Make no mistake those at the top want to monopolize period, NOT GOOD.  Consolidation is killing this country and will continue to kill this country.  The difference is we never used to let it happen, in this once "Free" Country.

People forget so quickly Apple wouldnt even be here if the government had not forced Gates to BAIL THEM OUT!  Do people like that Apple is here because it was ALLOWED to survive?

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:10 | 6990220 die standing
die standing's picture

it's a free will universe

human want to choose greed it's their prerogative

nothing free in this world

the price of love is love

love can be defined as sincerity, responsibility, commitment, sacrifice

choose greed and verily one will come to know what price is to be paid you don't worry

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:26 | 6990222 Wow72
Wow72's picture

I agree to a point, Apathy towards human nature, especially in the realm of tech, will be our end.  Mark my words.  The choice is all of ours we just dont realize it. We let a few make the decisions for the many and therefore we go in inferior directions, never to be completely successful.  Contrary to popular belief, GREED is not GOOD..  Greed ends up with evil or alone and extremely unsatisfied, just like an addict.

If it really was a "free will universe"  why do we not let companies fail  and to  make room for others?

Your right it is a free universe and the people are free to choose their direction why would anyone choose the direction our leaders have us going in? Mutual destruction is good?

Given that it is a "Free" Universe shouldnt Apple have been allowed to fail? Think of all the companies that have been bailed out, is that a truly "Free" Market? When we bail bad people out, they cant be replaced naturally by the market? By better people. Thats not "Free" so its all relative. 

Im going to support guys like LInus Torvalds who could have been Gates, but choose a more spiritual path that was more about the product and not about himself.  LInus doesnt NEED to be #1, but thats what makes him and his system the best.

Just because someone has money doesnt mean they are "Good" quite the opposite in fact from my experiences. 

For the record I started learning the first versions of DOS in the mid eighties when I was in eighth grade.  Ive built hundreds of computers since then.  Ive used every version of windows since except 10 it will be the first version I dont use if at all possible. Then they took most access to DOS away, thats when I started to see.  Linux still has their command prompt.  There is no doubt Gates is smart.  At this point the NSA has windows so jambed up you cant use it.

Think about it:  If the government had not forced Gates to bail out Apple, Apple would not be here?  I wont even get into Google, used to like them too.. Remember people Google's competition is only a CLICK away...

Torvalds didnt need a bailout and he gave some of his ideas away for free, what a gift. 

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 09:38 | 6990320 Wow72
Wow72's picture

Man should be absolutely free within a clear set of boundaries that is GOOD for ALL.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:25 | 6990237 One of these is...
One of these is not like the others..'s picture

I'd use linux if it actually WORKED for me. and didn't BREAK all the time.

I've tried Ubuntu, Mint, redhat, redhat fedora, and they are all the same, when you actually get 'em working they don't stay working for very long. Until they get to be at least as reliable as windows, then it will never catch on. I use open office, skype and firefox on my regular machines, and I've yet to manage to get all three on a linux box. I guess with software authors you actually DO get a better performing product if they are paid for it. Who'd a thunk it, eh?

*edit* Having said all that I'm going to need an alternative platform that actually does work soon, because I sure as shit don't want anything to do with windows 10..

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:31 | 6990242 Wow72
Wow72's picture

I use Ubuntu Linux everyday I switch back to windows and it sucks so not sure what the problems are? Windows 8 really SUCKS! Forget 10.  Linux has the world constantly updating it, Windows is fast becoming inferior.   If your a gamer you want MS but hey give all your privacy away, everything has a cost, MS just charges way extra? Look where Gates stands? at the top? No discounts there.

Best of all Linux is free.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 16:34 | 6991849 BarkingCat
BarkingCat's picture

Bullshit. I am on Linux Mint and have been for a few years. I type this on my 9 year old HP laptop that runs Mint. Previously I used Ubuntu on my entertainment PC until Ubuntu came out with that stupid Unity desktop.  I dropped it and switched to Mint.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 22:47 | 6993523 Abaco
Abaco's picture

Can't decide if you are a liar or a moron.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:23 | 6990238 Arnold
Arnold's picture

My wife's windrows 8 pops up the upgrade to windrows 10 on every boot.

My XP system is getting buggy despite work arounds.

My linux clean boot does every thing I've programed it to do very memory lightly.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:53 | 6990247 Wow72
Wow72's picture

Same for me!  Soon all my computers will run Ubuntu. I clean mine periodically with Ubuntu Tweak. 

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:26 | 6990244 nickt1y
nickt1y's picture

Alll tech is one EMP or CME away from becoming junk. Act and prepare accordingly.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 08:32 | 6990249 Arnold
Arnold's picture

Hey, I am really looking forward to EMP, but in the mean time, gotta make the donuts.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 09:49 | 6990343 all-priced-in
all-priced-in's picture

This article doesn't apply to me - my schools use Apple products.

 

 

 

 

/s/

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 10:54 | 6990499 roadhazard
roadhazard's picture

I would say pass notes like we did when I was in school but a teacher intercepted one of mine in the sixth grade. It was to a girl named,Elaine. I remember because she had huge tits for a sixth grade girl and I was in love with them and told her exactly what I liked about her. It didn't end well as you can guess but at least they didn't send me off for pervert counseling back in those days. I'll bet it went on my, "permanent record", lol. Ah, to be young and in lust again.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:57 | 6990682 Stevious
Stevious's picture

C'mon folk, Windows BAD, Ubuntu/Linux good.

So plz give us a link or two on "how to..."

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 12:13 | 6990736 ghostofgo
ghostofgo's picture

Tyler loves Google and Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter and... He uses their spy software all the time. Don't you Tyler? ZH and Mike Kreiger are huge parts of the problem too. How many cookies did you put on computers today Tyler? How do you sleep with your creepy stalking self Tyler? So Creepy.

Sun, 01/03/2016 - 16:16 | 6991768 Treason Season
Treason Season's picture
Our Google who art in Google, Google be thy name thy kingdom Google thy will be Google in Google as it is in Google. Give us this Google our daily Google and Google us our Google as we Google our Googles and Google us not into Google but deliver us from Google; pues Google. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.
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