[KatrKat]

> The point is that Organization A is providing their owned device to Person A, and they have a right to monitor its use.

Why should that right win out in this case over the user's right to fiduciary technology that puts their interests first?

A company car can be worn out by driving it around for frivolous reasons, so the company will impose a condition that you can't do that, and monitor you to make sure you obey the restriction you agreed to.

A school issued laptop is not going to wear out any faster or slower depending on what you type on it. And there's clearly no restriction here against personal use.

The school might have a legitimate interest in whether the students are leaving their laptops plugged in all night mining Bitcoins and wearing out the battery. They don't have any legitimate interest in the contents of the students' diaries, whether they're written using school-issued tools or not.

Teaching students to expect this sort of treatment from people with power over them is corrosive to society.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> And there's clearly no restriction here against personal use.

Are you sure about that? I'm not allowed to use my employer's laptop for personal use. Why am I allowed to use the school's laptop for personal use?

> That's the point I am trying to get across - there is no such right to violate privacy

You like to talk about rights. Doesn't the school have the right to say, "You can't use this device unless you comply with the (arbitrary) rules that I make. One of those rules is that I'm going to spy on your use of this device. If you do not like it, you are free to use your own device instead."

[KatrKat]

Sorry, there may be a restriction against personal use; this system is not being used to enforce a restriction against personal use, as described in the article. It's being used to monitor all use, personal or otherwise, for content the school is interested in, no matter in what context it is written. It's not scanning for non-school documents in general, or video games.

The school has a right to impose conditions or monitor, to the same extent that anyone lending someone something has that right. But in this case it is in conflict with the child's rights, in a few ways:

1. The child may not know about the monitoring. 2. The child, being a child, may not actually have a feasible way to use their "own" device. The school-issued device may be the only device they have access to or that they or their family can afford. 3. The school may expect or require them to use the school-issued device in certain situations, and may not appreciate it when the child troops into class with their own personal machine, or tries to take a test from home on an ordinary PC. 4. The child has a right to a good education from the school, to make them into an adult that one is happy to share a society with. A good education should teach a person not to tolerate arbitrary restrictions, conditions, or monitoring without good cause, especially from a governmental agency.

Finally, I believe users of computing devices have the right to be able to rely on those devices as extensions of themselves. Having somebody else all up in your computing experience is a lot like having somebody else inside your head, and in general it shouldn't be allowed.

[ziddoap]

>A school issued laptop is not going to wear out any faster or slower depending on what you type on it.

Except you know, all the non-hardware related issues computers can face such as viruses, ransomware, etc.

>And there's clearly no restriction here against personal use.

I'll need a source on that. My kids school laptop comes with strict "no personal use" instructions.

[KatrKat]

Sorry, what I meant to say here I think is that Gaggle isn't being used to enforce a restriction against personal use. It seems like the school district in the article doesn't particularly care whether students are using their laptops or school accounts for personal use or not. They're not surveilling Google chat and e-mail looking for just any personal communications, or excluding academic communications form surveillance.

Look at the "what Gaggle flagged on kids' computers" chart: none of this is "video games" or "wasting time on YouTube" or "visiting sketchy domains that might host ransomware". If that sort of stuff was in "Other", "Other" would be the biggest category. If personal use of the devices or accounts outside the particular areas Gaggle scans for is against policy, the school doesn't seem to be using this tool to try and enforce that policy.

They are instead using the tool to examine everything the students do or store that might be related to these topics, whether it happens during personal or academic use.