The data economy is stalking the school

License Creative Commons

Jon Bustillo

The big technology companies have discovered the value of personal data since quite long ago, and have created what is known as “data economy”. To know at any time what a person is doing, where it is, what is buying, what’s visiting, what’s feeling like, what’s worrying, it has become the most precious treasure, and no resources are spared to achieve this goal. Million-dollar investments that aim to continue to delve into the knowledge of what happens in people’s lives and that, apparently, it’s yet being very profitable. Behind this, there is a whole industry of buying and selling data we would be surprised at how exhaustive the information that these companies are able to provide about each one of us could be. In our daily lives, we do not stop generating more and more data through mobile devices, their operating systems and communication networks. An inexhaustible source of information that, combined with the computing power of the most complex computing systems, is capable of identifying each subject, obtaining behavioral patterns by segments and identifying socioeconomic profiles that allow companies to adapt both services and prices to each person. We are talking about personalized communication, a new way of conditioning people, offering each person what they want to hear, whether or not it is true, and creating a kind of “echo chamber” (Peirano, 2019).

Schools are not immune to this reality and, since the incorporation of ICTs in classrooms, a new window has been opened for data hoarders to continue getting more information about us. Let’s do a little exercise on what this selfless contribution to the data economy would be like. Let’s imagine a primary school (unfortunately this could also be done with early childhood schools) that, in a display of innovation and modernism, incorporates the use of Chromebooks [1], or if you prefer, free Google services in the day-to-day of its classes. Educational resources that, through the center’s Wi-Fi network, allow access to almost any information that, at the same time is sent to the technology companies all the information related to the use of technology, both the hardware and the programs used by each registered user. There would go, without much effort, information related to the history of searches and navigation, writing speed, average reading time, work done… and others that are not so obvious but are also of interest to the data industry (Rodríguez Prieto, 2023). This comes first in the classroom environment, but when the students reconnect, identifying themselves at home (either through the school equipment or any other device at home), there the technology companies are able to obtain a whole cascade of information related to the economic, family and social conditions that are associated with that student. Thus, when the Wi-Fi network to which all the mobile devices in the house are connected is shared at home, the user registered in the different educational services promoted by the school is incorporated into the data beam we are kindly providing for free to the large technology companies that they can analyze to obtain new patterns (O’Neil, 2017).

This information is not merely only added to that generated within the domestic Wi-Fi network, but is also associated with that generated by all mobile devices (on any connection point) that the technology companies have already duly identified. Companies such as Google, Apple, Telefónica or Samsung can identify what the families of schoolchildren are like and who their members are. At the very least, they know the type of devices they use, how often they renew them, connection and disconnection times, where they live, who they live with, what they buy and where, level of spending, who they associate with, if they go on vacation (when and where), medical history,… even who they vote for. As Véliz (2021) points out, “The power of technology companies is formed, on the one hand, from the possession of exclusive control over our data and, on the other, by their ability to predict all our movements, which, in turn, gives them multiple opportunities to influence our behavior and to sell that influence to others, including governments.” Too much power in the hands of private companies that are eager to incorporate the most intimate data on the school performance of the youngest members of the household. A price that is too high and that the educational administration, instead of avoiding, are generalizing through the multiple contracts made with these companies.

Some family associations have already spoken out against this situation, but educational administrations turn a deaf ear and, in the name of innovation and digital competition, the data market continues to be fattened, this time referring to minors who will leave a juicy trail of their school performance that will only be available to large technology companies.

Coinciding with Véliz (2021), I believe that not everything is lost. If the educational administration would promote it, we could at least achieve two basic issues; on the one hand, recover the incorporation of free hardware and software into education (Adell & Bernabé, 2007), thus limiting the generation and capture, by private companies, of student data on their educational performance, thus ensuring navigation on the Internet as anonymous as possible. On the other hand, management teams, teachers, families and students should be made aware of the need to preserve the privacy of our data, showing the consequences that are already affecting issues as close as staff selection, access to credit, personalized prices, insurance or gender violence programs. A new injustice for those people who are not favored by the algorithm that was trained with our data since school age.

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[1]     https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_es/chromebooks/overview/

Bibliography:

Adell, J., & Bernabé, Y. (2007). Software libre en educación. Tecnología educativa. Madrid: McGraw-Hill, 173-195.

O’Neil, C. (2017). Armas de destrucción matemática: Cómo el bigdata aumenta la desigualdad y amenaza la democracia. Capitán Swing Libros.

Peirano, M. (2019). El enemigo conoce el sistema: Manipulación de ideas, personas e influencias después de la economía de la atención. Debate.

Rodríguez Prieto, R. (2023). Menores, privacidad y derechos humanos en la escuela. El caso de Google workplace for education en España. DERECHOS Y LIBERTADES: Revista de Filosofía del Derecho y derechos humanos, 50, 199-224. https://doi.org/10.20318/dyl.2024.8240

Véliz, C. (2021). Privacidad es poder: Datos, vigilancia y libertad en la era digital. Penguin.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons