Here's the thing about G suite usage by schools. When I first learned that schools, and even school districts not only adopted the G suite for use by teachers and their students, but even, in some...
Here's the thing about G suite usage by schools. When I first learned that schools, and even school districts not only adopted the G suite for use by teachers and their students, but even, in some cases, made them mandatory (parents can't opt out), I was alarmed by one realization: Google would be getting its tentacles on the PII (name, contact info, location) of every educated person in these districts. Of course, "every educated person" essentially means everyone in the modern world (where G suite is used).
It's staggering to think that the people in charge didn't see or understand this corollary. Or, we might suppose they were incentivized ($$$) to overlook it. Hard to resist when you get an offering for a full technical solution for free ("free"), compared with needing to spend limited budget allocation on some other solution.
Workspace accounts are very different than standard Google accounts. They have different terms, privacy policies, and data policies. This data is not tied into ad retargeting or anything else that...
Workspace accounts are very different than standard Google accounts. They have different terms, privacy policies, and data policies. This data is not tied into ad retargeting or anything else that people usually find objectionable.
It's also not free. It's a cloud service, and schools pay for it.
Structurally, Google is a contractor to the school, any contractor will sign contracts to keep the school's records private, and it all depends on whether the contracts are strict enough, whether...
Structurally, Google is a contractor to the school, any contractor will sign contracts to keep the school's records private, and it all depends on whether the contracts are strict enough, whether you think Google keeps its promises and what you think they might do with the information if they break them.
After all, schools already have all this information in their records, and nobody really minds. Who else do they contract with for record keeping? Probably some companies you never heard of, and who knows how good their security is.
How much do you know about the IT departments of hospitals and doctors' offices and banks? How many potential employers have seen your resume?
People are selectively skeptical about this stuff because if you were consistently skeptical about every organization's ability to keep your personal information private, you couldn't live in modern society.
Yeah. As a bookkeeping contractor who did payroll I had access to hundreds of people's legal name, DOB, social security #, home address, bank account and routing #, etc. Almost none of the...
Yeah. As a bookkeeping contractor who did payroll I had access to hundreds of people's legal name, DOB, social security #, home address, bank account and routing #, etc. Almost none of the employees knew I had it, but it had been provided to their employers to they could be paid, and thus I had it. No fuss was ever kicked up, though perhaps if framed as "an outside firm has access to all our private data" someone might have complained. It's even more true of the payroll processing company themselves. The largest payroll companies collectively hold all the private info needed to steal the identities of 90% of working Americans. But because there's proper security measures in place, nothing happens.
My issue is not that PII is entrusted to third-parties. My issue is that the PII of a significant percentage of the populations of multiple regions of the world would be given to a single third...
My issue is not that PII is entrusted to third-parties. My issue is that the PII of a significant percentage of the populations of multiple regions of the world would be given to a single third party, often without informed consent or recourse to alternatives.
I see bans like these as a net positive, as much as things like Chromebooks and iPads make educational tech more affordable it also has a hugely detrimental effect on future generations computer...
I see bans like these as a net positive, as much as things like Chromebooks and iPads make educational tech more affordable it also has a hugely detrimental effect on future generations computer literacy skills since it's all running web services that are dumbed down to be usable by a 5 y/o from a UX/UI perspective. I was going through high school during Apple's "educational outreach" stint 10 years ago and the entire program was based off 1 Macbook per student, and even that felt like a Fisher-Price computing experience compared to a PC despite OSX facilitating my first exposure to a bash terminal as a teenager. Nowadays we're seeing more and more students entering university and not knowing what the concept of a file or folder is when they use a PC for the first time because Chromebooks and iPads just don't really let you do anything outside of their highly-controlled simple-stupid interface.
Here's the thing about G suite usage by schools. When I first learned that schools, and even school districts not only adopted the G suite for use by teachers and their students, but even, in some cases, made them mandatory (parents can't opt out), I was alarmed by one realization: Google would be getting its tentacles on the PII (name, contact info, location) of every educated person in these districts. Of course, "every educated person" essentially means everyone in the modern world (where G suite is used).
It's staggering to think that the people in charge didn't see or understand this corollary. Or, we might suppose they were incentivized ($$$) to overlook it. Hard to resist when you get an offering for a full technical solution for free ("free"), compared with needing to spend limited budget allocation on some other solution.
Workspace accounts are very different than standard Google accounts. They have different terms, privacy policies, and data policies. This data is not tied into ad retargeting or anything else that people usually find objectionable.
It's also not free. It's a cloud service, and schools pay for it.
Structurally, Google is a contractor to the school, any contractor will sign contracts to keep the school's records private, and it all depends on whether the contracts are strict enough, whether you think Google keeps its promises and what you think they might do with the information if they break them.
After all, schools already have all this information in their records, and nobody really minds. Who else do they contract with for record keeping? Probably some companies you never heard of, and who knows how good their security is.
How much do you know about the IT departments of hospitals and doctors' offices and banks? How many potential employers have seen your resume?
People are selectively skeptical about this stuff because if you were consistently skeptical about every organization's ability to keep your personal information private, you couldn't live in modern society.
Yeah. As a bookkeeping contractor who did payroll I had access to hundreds of people's legal name, DOB, social security #, home address, bank account and routing #, etc. Almost none of the employees knew I had it, but it had been provided to their employers to they could be paid, and thus I had it. No fuss was ever kicked up, though perhaps if framed as "an outside firm has access to all our private data" someone might have complained. It's even more true of the payroll processing company themselves. The largest payroll companies collectively hold all the private info needed to steal the identities of 90% of working Americans. But because there's proper security measures in place, nothing happens.
My issue is not that PII is entrusted to third-parties. My issue is that the PII of a significant percentage of the populations of multiple regions of the world would be given to a single third party, often without informed consent or recourse to alternatives.
I see bans like these as a net positive, as much as things like Chromebooks and iPads make educational tech more affordable it also has a hugely detrimental effect on future generations computer literacy skills since it's all running web services that are dumbed down to be usable by a 5 y/o from a UX/UI perspective. I was going through high school during Apple's "educational outreach" stint 10 years ago and the entire program was based off 1 Macbook per student, and even that felt like a Fisher-Price computing experience compared to a PC despite OSX facilitating my first exposure to a bash terminal as a teenager. Nowadays we're seeing more and more students entering university and not knowing what the concept of a file or folder is when they use a PC for the first time because Chromebooks and iPads just don't really let you do anything outside of their highly-controlled simple-stupid interface.