But Privacy Advocates Urge Caution
Educators have another IT-inspired resource to help them keep watch on their school’s safety and security.
It’s called Bark for Schools, a student and school safety internet monitoring product that detects potential problems affecting students across school-issued Google’s G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 accounts.
Available free of cost to K-12 schools in the U.S., Bark for Schools was launched in 2018 in response to the Parkland school tragedy, which provides IT account monitoring and web filtering services.
Its account monitoring capabilities, powered by algorithms, look for signs of digital dangers including cyberbullying, threats of violence, suicidal ideation, online predators, and more.
Bark’s web filter allows educators to block games, pornography sites, streaming services, and other domains that may negatively affect the learning environment.
The after-school hours’ notification system called Parent Portal allows schools to share responsibility and alerts the families in their community on the school-provided devices at no additional cost. These are times when students still use their school-issued accounts, but school administration may not be able to respond to urgent alerts.
Bark for Schools offers districts the free service anticipating that those districts may upgrade to its “Bark for Schools OnCall” premium service, which provides 24/7 support in responding to emergency alerts that may indicate imminent threats of harm to self or others.
View Bark’s 2019 Case Study HERE.
However, as with any new surveillance technology, privacy rights advocates recommend proceeding with transparency as well as caution.
“There still is no independent evaluation of whether this kind of surveillance technology actually works to reduce violence and self-harm,” according to a report in The Guardian newspaper. “Privacy experts say pervasive monitoring may hurt children and may be particularly dangerous to students with disabilities and students of color.”
As technology continues to advance, and schools continue to introduce laptops, tablets and other digital products into the school day, educators must define for themselves how to responsibly monitor students on school-provided devices – and how aggressive they think monitoring should be.