"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Monday, November 17, 2014

ClassDojo: Another Insecure Child Labeling, Shaming, and Tracking Device

If your town has 9 schools, there is a teacher in three of them using unsafe software that can be used to publicly shame your child while making money for the company that sells the app.  The banking model of education just got a whole lot more lucrative, and the total surveillance society just got a bit closer still. 

The NYTimes has a piece on the latest cutesy version of the KIPP paycheck.  In this digitized and cutesy one that uses children to become complicit in their own monitoring and labeling, ClassDojo seeks to get rich by collecting and sharing data.  Below is a screen grab of one of their demos.  Now when their paid teachers talk about having more points added than points deleted, ask them how you get points added for "Late to Class."


And yes, they have a privacy policy, but here is the money shot of the policy below.   

Read it and decide if you want your kids monitored, labeled, and tracked using another non-secure piece of shit software:
. . . . We work with third party service providers to provide website and application development, hosting, and maintenance as well as other services for us. To the extent it is necessary for these service providers to complete their contractual obligations to us, these third parties may have access to or process your personally identifiable information. Generally, our policy is to make these disclosures under limitations comparable to those in this policy, although certain large service providers, such as large hosting providers, do not expressly agree to such limitations in their contracts with us or their other customers. Many third parties who we provide your Personally Identifiable Information authorize certain government and law enforcement agencies access to information stored by such third parties without providing notice to us, in some cases as required by law and in other cases voluntarily, and we have no control over such activities.

We may make certain automatically collected and other aggregate non-personally-identifiable information to assist such parties in understanding our users’ interests, habits, and usage patterns for certain programs, content, services, promotions, and/or functionality available through the Service.

We may also disclose your information if required to do so by law, such as in response to a subpoena or where a parent requests copies of Children’s Personal Information, or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws (such as U.S. Copyright law), or in response to a court order, judicial or other government subpoena or warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with investigative or law enforcement activity.

We also reserve the right to disclose your information that we believe, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to take precautions against liability; to protect us and others from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful uses or activity; to investigate and defend ourselves against any third party claims or allegations; to assist government enforcement agencies; to protect the security or integrity of the Service; or to protect our, our users’, and others’ rights, property, and security. 

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:02 AM

    We are conditioning children to be watched and judged at every moment--research says this is very very bad for future mental health. It also conditions children to seek external rewards rather than possess intrinsic motivation. Weren't educators suppose to have coursework in developmental psychology?

    ReplyDelete