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Some students in New York City public schools say they feel like they’re being spied on as they leave classes on bathroom breaks and other hall pass reasons.
They say SmartPass, what they characterize as Big Brother-type technology, is being forced on them when they leave classes for various reasons.
How SmartPass works
SmartPass keeps a comprehensive digital record of missed class time and makes it easier to prevent too many kids being out in the halls at once.
CBS News New York
The technology is being used in 167 public schools in the city to track how long a student is gone. It’s also able to keep a running tally of missed class time, and can see who might be socializing.
“They have your face on it,” one female student said. “You put your student ID in and there’s a tablet that comes up with, like, counselors, office, bathroom, locker and nurses office.”
“I was used to, before middle school, the old way you just write a slip and go out, and having it fully now online, digital, feels kind of weird,” one male student said.
NYCLU raises concerns
The Department of Education has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars setting the technology up, but leaders of the New York Civil Liberties Union call it troubling.
“There’s plenty of surveillance tools that have a function. I think what we are questioning is whether a kid going to the bathroom is truly an emergency worthy of high-tech apparatus and digital surveillance of their time in the bathroom,’ the NYCLU’s director of education policy.
A spokesperson for New York City Public Schools said it’s left up to the leaders of individual campuses to decide whether they want the technology or not.
The DOE said the program is fully vetted, adding, “We follow all city, state, and federal privacy regulations. No school is required to adopt this tool.”
CBS News New York reached out to SmartPass and is waiting for the company’s response.
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