Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families • Hacker News Board

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#151

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #136

Silhouette wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to blame the incumbent government - and maybe in that respect there is some justification for doing so - but I doubt the deeper issues here are really about party politics. The previous Labour era was also increasingly authoritarian and Starmer, despite his history as a defence lawyer with an interest in human rights cases, has so far shown little willingness to roll back these kinds of measures. I find tha…

Certainly experience here in Oxfordshire (my wife has been safeguarding lead at her last two schools) is that the dramatic increase in CAMHS and EHCP referral times is entirely during the Conservatives' spell in power - and the consequent underfunding of local government. It could just be a local issue, and Oxfordshire have certainly been doing badly, but reporting suggests it's widespread. But like you I have no con…

I don't doubt you about the situation in Oxfordshire. I suppose I'm suggesting that these measures are symptoms of a wider malaise that has developed in our society over a longer period, where "personal responsibility" are somehow dirty words and everything has to be someone else's fault now.

That leads to unrealistic expectations that the government will somehow solve all problems. That in turn creates a political culture dominated by fear and CYA with an unhealthy side order of paranoia and everything conceivable being monitored/measured.

I don't know for sure what caused this. I suspect a product of several factors including 24/7 news, near-universal access to online systems and particularly social media, and a few high profile events like 9/11 where governments responded very badly and effectively encouraged a culture of fear. It's definitely something about our culture that has changed very clearly within my adult lifetime though. The idea of having principles and understanding why they matter feels very old-fashioned today. And again I don't think that's healthy for our society at all.

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#152

Post by didntcheck » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

ballenf wrote: post #17

merpnderp wrote: post #4

The title made it sound like the schools were installing malware on students' devices, but as far as I can tell this is just a central database bringing together data from different government agencies. I'm not sure I see the problem with schools getting an update that a kid was arrested by police or that their family is on food aid or something. Schools in my area need to know which kids are living in poverty becaus…

Maybe the real problem is that there exists a system design to allow querying a person's family connections to police interactions. This isn't even just convictions, but basically any accusations or investigations. The wording is kind of vague, but I think this framing is supported by the article. The existence of such a system just seems dystopian. Seems entirely reasonable that issues of domestic violence should be…

Yep. The fact that you can effectively be smeared by a state-managed record with often no right of appeal is disturbing. And this isn't the only scenario. Look up "non-crime hate incidents", which depend largely on a victim's claim that the event took place and that they believe it was "hateful", and I believe can show up on some DBS background checks. Why are the police disclosing these events that are by definition non-crimes?

> For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone [1]

David Cameron was rightly criticized for those comments in 2015. Unfortunately there's been a bit of a culture shift since then, and it's now often those same critics supporting similar measures and implying that you must have something to hide if you fear them

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/counter-terr...

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#153

Post by guitarbill » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

dgroshev wrote: post #131

imnotlost wrote: post #63

The Brits have gone all in on the surveillance society with their CCTV cameras all over the place and now the Online Safety Bill. Still early days, I'm sure it'll be expanded at every opportunity. Maybe 1984 is the blueprint. In the US the fundamental Christians are grabbing power and they're taking flamethrowers to books and talking about tracking women who may go across state-lines to get an abortion. Self-censorsh…

The CCTV meme is completely disconnected from reality. There are plenty of CCTV cameras around, but they aren't connected in any way, most of them are private, and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings. American obsession with Ring-like cloud connected cameras and their dealings with police forces are way more dystopian than the reality of CCTV as practiced in Britain. A good…

> and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings

obviously this is the case if you are a normal citizen. imagine how fast they'd access the recordings if a police officer was hurt, or to identify protesters, etc

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#154

Post by bmsleight_ » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:25 PM UTC

pera wrote: post #42

ballenf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the real problem is that there exists a system design to allow querying a person's family connections to police interactions. This isn't even just convictions, but basically any accusations or investigations. The wording is kind of vague, but I think this framing is supported by the article. The existence of such a system just seems dystopian. Seems entirely reasonable that issues of domestic violence should be…

The council provides a data flow diagram showing the source of the data: https://www.bristol.gov.uk/files/documents/5972-insight-bris...

Bloody hell - until I looked at the digram, I did no realise - this is pure profiling. What has benefit data got to do with a child at risk. As per Housing - this is profile of people because they live on the 'wrong' estate.

"Accessing Out of Work benefits" is saying the child may be at risk. "Teenage Parent" is used as an indicator.

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#155

Post by didntcheck » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:26 PM UTC

rob137 wrote: post #132

joncrocks wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's just the UK. I think the issue is that it's very hard to have open discussions about accepting that certain events are unavoidable and preferable to the second order impacts of trying to 'solve the problem'. It's hard to talk about at least in part that 'the problem' in these situations tends to be a terrible event that can be avoided, but only avoided by doing lots of lots of 'ever so slightly ter…

Yes, this captures my feeling too. It feels like an evil problem. It's not just misaligned incentives, though they do play a role. I would love to find a name for this type of dynamic. I don't have words for the issue, and feel like I could communicate it more easily to others if I did.

To combine some metaphors - is it basically shooting the messenger who tells you that the cure is worse than the disease?

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#156

Post by ChoHag » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #103

hef19898 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure any of that is any of a schools business. Not even sure something like that would be legal over here.

In the UK it's absolutely common for schools to be involved in family welfare simply because the other arms of the state have withered away to uselessness. In theory there's a concept of "Team Around The Child" where the various agencies - school, social services, social housing, sometimes even police - can come together to help the child through the rough circumstances they're in. In practice, the only one of those…

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Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#157

Post by ChoHag » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #129

merpnderp wrote: post #4

The title made it sound like the schools were installing malware on students' devices, but as far as I can tell this is just a central database bringing together data from different government agencies. I'm not sure I see the problem with schools getting an update that a kid was arrested by police or that their family is on food aid or something. Schools in my area need to know which kids are living in poverty becaus…

> Schools in my area need to know which kids are living in poverty because they send home backpacks of food with them over the summer. This is the sort of thing that sounds good at first but ends up with these big brother databases. Really, why is it the responsibility of the school to send home food with a child? Schools should teach. That's it. If there is a need to send food to some family, there are agencies and…

[dead]

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#158

Post by didntcheck » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

stainablesteel wrote: post #30

the article constantly mentions racism and i don't understand how racism fits into this picture i think when they write things like that it means "we don't mean to expose the racist behavior of certain black students when we spy on them through apps we force them to install", which is pretty crooked all around

It's a Guardian article. You get used to it...

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#159

Post by bmsleight_ » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

samwillis wrote: post #15

I have a friend who has been the safeguarding lead in a school, it's a tough and emotional job with enormous responsibility. He's found it incredibly fulfilling, but I can only imagine what he has had to deal with based on the few hits we have heard. My understanding is that the teachers that take on these roles are incredibly well trained, understand the responsibility, and know how to be both discreet and keep thin…

>There is no denying though that if it helps teachers in safeguarding children that is a good thing.

The problem is the variability of quality of teachers. I seen and been involved, both as a parent and governor with Safeguarding leads. There has been wonderful, caring and talented teachers. I am not convinced the excellent teachers need more data - they know the kids and the families very well and can draw on years of experience and support.

There has been also teachers, which have out-dated views and prejudices. This tool in the wrong hand makes matters far worse. This feels like a tool put together with people with outdated views. Like teenage parents are an indicator of a need for safe-guarding or being out of work is a correlation for safe-guiding. This clear prejudices being born-out.

Re: Call to shut down Bristol schools’ use of app to ‘monitor’ pupils and families

#160

Post by dgroshev » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

guitarbill wrote: post #153

dgroshev wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CCTV meme is completely disconnected from reality. There are plenty of CCTV cameras around, but they aren't connected in any way, most of them are private, and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings. American obsession with Ring-like cloud connected cameras and their dealings with police forces are way more dystopian than the reality of CCTV as practiced in Britain. A good…

> and in reality the police mostly can't be bothered to try and access the recordings obviously this is the case if you are a normal citizen. imagine how fast they'd access the recordings if a police officer was hurt, or to identify protesters, etc

There are probably hundreds to thousands of protesters protesting for different causes in London alone every weekend. CCTV tracking of protesters is just not happening, it's absolutely unrealistic. Besides, you don't need street CCTV for that, local police van-based CCTV on mass gatherings is already a thing all over the globe.

Stuff like Ring (centralised, pervasive, and already cooperating with authorities) is way more sus than CCTV on British streets.