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Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

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Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#161

Post by lrvick »

yunohn wrote: post #127
tluyben2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had learned OpenOffice calc or write, would that have made much of a difference? Takes a few hours to move 80% from one to the other. Maybe if very specific functions it may take a few minutes more.

Would you prefer we mandate Vim or EMacs for kids? Both are free, so it’s a deliberate choice to be made. And how do you suggest we support this decision and their potential inability to use an IDE in the real world?

I have 25 years of software engineering experience in a dozen languages and vim and the supporting plugin ecosystem cover everything I could ever need.

Modern IDEs are not at all required for success in this industry. They can sometimes even be a crutch.

I still teach people Vim. Some learn other things later but the important thing is they have a fast and free baseline available in every package manager.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#162

Post by 2000UltraDeluxe »

msh wrote: post #58

Its not true. I only have a correct source in danish: https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/et-centralt-vaerktoej-for-... But only one local county have been forbidden from processing personal data on school chromebooks as they did not do any analysis of the consequences.

Elsinore's mayor seems to be of a different opinion: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benediktekiaerhelsingor_educa... (in Danish)

Long story short, she claims this will have far-reaching consequences not just for Elsinore, but for other school districs as well.

Elsinore did, indeed, do an analysis, which is clearly stated in the report: https://www.datatilsynet.dk/afgoerelser/afgoerelser/2022/jul... (also in Danish -- translator link in a sibling comment)

The main points are that Elsinore concluded that the risks with using Google Workspace are low, but that it cannot be guaranteed that US authorities won't be able to get hold of the data. In order to be allowed to use Google Workspace, Elsinore must re-evaluate that position and be absolutely sure that such leaks cannot happen. This is the part that might have far-reaching consequences, since Elsinore -- and many others -- don't see that as possible.

I'm in no way an expert when it comes to GDPR, but there's a lot of people who're quite upset about this, since it means any school using Google Workspace is expected to prove data transfer to non-EU entities isn't possible without adequate protection.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#163

Post by ClumsyPilot »

gdhkgdhkvff wrote: post #43
wiz21c wrote: post #2

Now let's ban MSFT Office365 too. It's of zero use to teach whatever to the kids.

Do you have any reason to say this other than “big corporation bad”? I would argue it is far more helpful for 80%+ of kids to learn excel than to learn advanced maths.

imagine a market for 3D animation software - Maya, 4D studio, etc. like 4 companies.

If 100% of a country's schools start teaching software from company A, thats a massive subsidy - basically 100% of the population will know how to use their software and prefer it to their competitors. Businesses will buy that software because everyone already knows it. You are massively distorting free market.

With a conoany thats already a monopoly, thats doubly unfair.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#164

Post by lrvick »

endisneigh wrote: post #97
lrvick wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an open secret if you talk to any Google employee that Gmail data is heavily used to enrich other Google services, including ad placement, even if indirectly. They also can and will give it to authorities thanks to bulk keyword sharing agreements with or without individual warrants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/googl... US citizens should take careful note of the fact their data is onl…

That link doesn’t support your claim

It is a publicly known example of a blanket keyword search warrant. How is this not relevant? This sort of order could apply to any Google service.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#165

Post by lrvick »

sidibe wrote: post #53
lrvick wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an open secret if you talk to any Google employee that Gmail data is heavily used to enrich other Google services, including ad placement, even if indirectly. They also can and will give it to authorities thanks to bulk keyword sharing agreements with or without individual warrants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/googl... US citizens should take careful note of the fact their data is onl…

Going to take that first part with a grain of salt since I feel like any "open secrets" at Google end up with many whistleblowers and feature articles

Google is not a charity. They are not giving you gmail without charge without somehow generating profit from your data. You do not need an insider leak to work that much out.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#166

Post by exo762 »

spookie wrote: post #144
msh wrote: post #58

Its not true. I only have a correct source in danish: https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/et-centralt-vaerktoej-for-... But only one local county have been forbidden from processing personal data on school chromebooks as they did not do any analysis of the consequences.

If it isn't, it should be. School is obligatory, we really shouldn't employ commercial products in schools to begin with. In Portugal, some years ago, kids were given computers with a Linux distro pre-installed for *free*, and LibreOffice was used as a word processor replacement. Argentina did the same thing, hell there were others too.

> School is obligatory, we really shouldn't employ commercial products in schools to begin with.

I think a better formulation of this would be following. School is obligatory, we should not employ products that collect private information of students.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#167

Post by samcat116 »

lrvick wrote: post #44
rattray wrote: post #31

How concretely-grounded are these privacy concerns? I know we all love to hate Google, but my impression is they take the privacy of email extremely seriously at this point (eg, no longer using it for ads). Sure, I don't trust Google that much and I know others trust their brand even less, but is there hard evidence of misuse of Gmail user data?

It is an open secret if you talk to any Google employee that Gmail data is heavily used to enrich other Google services, including ad placement, even if indirectly. They also can and will give it to authorities thanks to bulk keyword sharing agreements with or without individual warrants. https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/googl... US citizens should take careful note of the fact their data is onl…

Its literally in the Google Workspace terms of service they don't do this with workspace data.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#168

Post by lrvick »

koheripbal wrote: post #156
spookie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't, it should be. School is obligatory, we really shouldn't employ commercial products in schools to begin with. In Portugal, some years ago, kids were given computers with a Linux distro pre-installed for *free*, and LibreOffice was used as a word processor replacement. Argentina did the same thing, hell there were others too.

You think the government builds desks, blackboards, buildings, directly. Everything is outsourced to private companies. That's how economics works.

Those things are also not proprietary to any one company. Outsourcing labor to make generic things we could obtain elsewhere is not the same thing as teaching tools only one company controls.

We should not use schools to further the vendor-lock-in of corporations.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#169

Post by lrvick »

EUROCARE wrote: post #152
spookie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't, it should be. School is obligatory, we really shouldn't employ commercial products in schools to begin with. In Portugal, some years ago, kids were given computers with a Linux distro pre-installed for *free*, and LibreOffice was used as a word processor replacement. Argentina did the same thing, hell there were others too.

That's cool, but you can't give out mailboxes for free like you can give away computers. It needs to run somewhere, the servers maintained by someone. Do you have a better solution than Gmail? I know only about Microsoft, is that even an improvement?

I host email for hundreds of people with a $10/mo VPS.

Schools classically self hosted their network services and they can do so again. It is a good opportunity to mentor future sysadmins too.

Re: Denmark bans Gmail and Co from schools due to privacy concerns

#170

Post by gpm »

koheripbal wrote: post #156
spookie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it isn't, it should be. School is obligatory, we really shouldn't employ commercial products in schools to begin with. In Portugal, some years ago, kids were given computers with a Linux distro pre-installed for *free*, and LibreOffice was used as a word processor replacement. Argentina did the same thing, hell there were others too.

You think the government builds desks, blackboards, buildings, directly. Everything is outsourced to private companies. That's how economics works.

Using those things doesn't require that the students enter into a contract with the contractor, doesn't seem comparable.
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