The ‘Spy High' Digital Dystopia: Amazon Doc Probes Student Surveillance Harms
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.
It all began when school officials mistook a blurry image of a Mike and Ike candy for pills.
Pennsylvania teenager Blake Robbins found himself at the center of a digital surveillance controversy that gave rise to student privacy debates amid schools' growing reliance on ed tech.
Spy High, a four-part documentary series streaming now on Amazon Prime, puts the focus on a lawsuit filed in 2010 after Robbins' affluent Pennsylvania school district accused him of dealing drugs — a conclusion officials reached after they surreptitiously snapped a photo of him at home with the chewy candy in hand.
The moment had been captured on the webcam of his school-issued laptop — one of some 66,000 covert student images collected by the district, including one of Robbins asleep in his bed.
I caught up with Spy High Director Jody McVeigh-Schultz to discuss why the 15-year-old case offers cautionary lessons about student surveillance gone awry and how it informs contemporary student privacy debates.
Read the full interview here.
How student surveillance plays out today: Meet the gatekeepers of students' private lives. | The 74
Courts block DEI directive: Three federal courts ordered temporary halts on Thursday to Trump's efforts to cancel student diversity initiatives — and demands for states to pledge allegiance to the administration's interpretation of civil rights laws. | The 74President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that called for school discipline models 'rooted in American values and traditional virtues,' taking aim at Obama- and Biden-era efforts to reduce racial disparities in suspensions and expulsions. | Politico
'The history there is deeply, deeply disturbed': Disability-rights advocates have decried plans at the National Institutes of Health to compile Amerians' private medical records in a 'disease registry' to track children and other people with autism. | The 74
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., faced criticism for recent comments that many kids 'were fully functional and regressed because of some environmental exposure into autism when they're 2 years old.' | ABC News
A new lawsuit filed by students at military-run schools accuses the Defense Department of harming their learning opportunities by banning books related to 'gender ideology' or 'divisive equity ideology,' including texts that refer to slavery and sexual harassment prevention. | Military Times
Get the most critical news and information about students' rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox.
California lawmakers are demanding answers after Department of Homeland Security agents visited two Los Angeles elementary schools and asked to speak with five students who the federal agency said 'arrived unaccompanied at the border.' | LAist
'We all deserve reparations': White House aide Stephen Miller said in an interview last week the country 'used to have a functioning public school system' until it was destroyed by 'open borders.' | The New Republic
The Justice Department seized thousands of photos and videos in an investigation of a former University of Michigan assistant football coach who was indicted on allegations he hacked into student athletes' private accounts to steal intimate images. | CBS Sports
A 48-year-old mother was arrested and accused of bringing a gun to her daughter's Indiana elementary school and threatening the girl's teacher over a classroom assignment about flags. While discussing flags, the teacher reportedly referred to a rainbow flag in the classroom with the words 'be kind.' | NBC News
Banning 'frontal nudity': A Texas school district has removed lessons on Virginia history from an online learning platform for elementary school students because the commonwealth's flag depicts the Roman goddess Virtus with an exposed breast. | Axios
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next month to weigh Trump's executive order eliminating birthright citizenship, bringing into question a 127-year-old court precedent. | NPR
A class-action lawsuit accuses tech giant Google of amassing 'thousands of data points that span a child's life' without the consent of students or their parents. | Bloomberg Law
A Florida teacher is out of a job after she called a student by their preferred name, allegedly violating a 2023 Florida law that requires schools to receive parental permission to refer to students by anything other than their legal names. | Click Orlando
The vice president of the Buffalo, New York, chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse was arrested and accused of sex crimes against children. | WIVB
Supreme Court Shows Support for Parents Who Want Opt-Outs from LGBTQ Storybooks
'There Goes My Son's Help:' Wave of Washington Head Starts Shut Down as Chaos Engulfs Federal Program
State Officials Sue Trump Administration for Halting COVID School Aid
Protecting Children Online Takes Technology, Human Oversight and Accountability
Don't even think about touching Matilda's cactus.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
18 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
US and China are holding trade talks in London after Trump-Xi phone call
LONDON (AP) — High-level delegations from the United States and China are meeting in London on Monday to try and shore up a fragile truce in a trade dispute that has roiled the global economy, A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng is due to meet U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer at an undisclosed location in the city. The talks are due to last at least a day. They follow negotiations in Geneva last month that brought a temporary respite in the trade war. The two countries announced May 12 they had agreed to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100%-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession. Since then, the U.S. and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, 'rare earths' that are vital to carmakers and other industries, and visas for Chinese students at American universities. President Donald Trump spoke at length with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by phone last Thursday in an attempt to put relations back on track. Trump announced on social media the next day that trade talks would be held on Monday in London. 'We are a nation that champions free trade and have always been clear that a trade war is in nobody's interests, so we welcome these talks,' the British government said in a statement.
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Chad announces suspension of visas to US citizens in response to Trump travel ban
N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby has announced that his country will suspend the issuing of visas to U.S. citizens in response to the Trump administration's decision to ban Chadians from visiting the United States. President Donald Trump on Wednesday resurrected a hallmark policy of his first term when he announced the visa ban on 12 countries including Chad, accusing them of having 'deficient' screening and vetting, and historically refusing to take back their own citizens who overstay in the United States. The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven others in the new travel policy, which takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. In a Facebook post, Chad's president on Thursday said he is directing his government to suspend visas to U.S. citizens 'in accordance with the principles of reciprocity.' 'Chad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,' Deby said, referring to the $400 million luxury plane offered to his administration as a gift by the ruling family of Qatar. Republic of Congo calls the ban a mistake The new travel policy has triggered varied reactions from Africa, whose countries make up seven of the 12 countries affected by Trump's outright visa ban with some exemptions. In the Republic of Congo, government spokesperson Thierry Moungalla said he believes the country was among those affected because of a 'misunderstanding' over an armed attack in the U.S. with the perpetrators 'mistaken' to be from the Republic of Congo. 'Obviously, Congo is not a terrorist country, is not home to any terrorist, is not known to have a terrorist vocation. So we think that this is a misunderstanding and I believe that in the coming hours, the competent diplomatic services of the government will contact the American authorities here,' he said in the capital of Brazzaville. In Sierra Leone, among countries with heightened travel restrictions, Information Minister Chernor Bah said the country is committed to addressing the concerns that prompted the ban.
New York Post
2 hours ago
- New York Post
‘60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley warns a CBS settlement with Trump would be ‘very damaging'
'60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley spoke out about President Donald Trump's lawsuit against CBS and its parent company on Saturday, arguing that a settlement would be 'very damaging.' 'Well, it'd be very damaging to CBS, to Paramount, to the reputation of those companies,' Pelley said during a conversation with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Saturday, who asked how harmful a settlement and potential apology would be to the network. Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount Global, CBS News' parent company, over a '60 Minutes' interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris in October 2024. Fox News Digital confirmed that Trump rejected a $15 million offer to settle his lawsuit, according to a source familiar with the matter, as the president's legal team is also demanding at least $25 million and an apology from CBS News. Cooper, who is also a correspondent on '60 Minutes,' also asked Pelley about former show producer Bill Owens resigning from the program in April. 'Bill's decision to resign may not have been much of a decision for him because he was always the first person to defend the independence of '60 minutes.' Bill didn't work for Paramount. Bill worked for our viewers, and he felt very keenly about that. And so I'm not sure Bill had any choice, once the corporation began to meddle in Bill's decisions about the editorial content, or just place pressure in that area, Bill felt that he didn't have the independence that honest journalism requires,' Pelley said. 4 Scott Pelley warned that a settlement between President Trump and CBS would be 'very damaging.' 4 President Trump rejected a $15 million offer to settle his lawsuit, according to Fox News Digital. AP Pelley also said he wished he had the public backing of CBS News, but added that his work was still making it onto the program. 'You really wish the company was behind you 100%, right? You really wish the top echelons of the company would come out publicly and say '60 Minutes', for example, is a crown jewel of American journalism, and we stand behind it 100%. I haven't heard that. On the other hand, my work is getting on the air, and I have not had anyone outside '60 Minutes' put their thumb on the scale and say, 'you can't say that. You should say this. You have to edit the story in this way. You should interview this person.' None of that has happened. So while I would like to have that public backing, maybe the more important thing is the work is still getting on the air,' Pelley said. 4 The Federal Communications Commission accused '60 Minutes' of heavily editing an interview with Kamala Harris in 2024. 60 Minutes / CBS 4 Former show producer Bill Owens resigned from the program in April. The '60 Minutes' correspondent recently went viral for calling out Trump during a commencement address. 'In this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack,' Pelley said during his commencement speech at Wake Forest University. 'And insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts, the fear to speak in America. If our government is, in Lincoln's phrase, 'Of the people, by the people, for the people,' then why are we afraid to speak?' Pelley addressed the remarks during the CNN interview and told Cooper that he felt 'strongly' it needed to be said. 'I don't refer to him or the president or the White House or the administration. But I was talking about actions that have been taken by the government over these last many months. But, there was a little bit of hysteria among some about this speech, and I simply ask you, what does it say about our country when there's hysteria about a speech that's about freedom of speech?' the CBS correspondent added.
