Everyone's An Agent: UK Company Provides Spy Software To Teachers To Weed Out Child Terrorists
from the no-no-no dept
Never content to simply let America take a bad idea and run with it alone, these past few years have seen our friends in the UK slowly start to lose their collective minds concerning terrorism and radical Islam. It's hard to be too terribly snarky about it, considering here in America we've done our best to perfect overreacting to terrorism, but when the UK decided to institute something like Orwellian "thought crime," it was still worth noting how dumb of an idea it was. But our British friends weren't done. Now, schools throughout the country are being offered some very special software that will allow teachers to spy on student activities to try to weed out the eventually-maybe-might-be-radicalized.
Schools are being offered new software that helps teachers spy on pupils' potentially extremist online activity. It alerts teachers if pupils use specific terrorism-related terms or phrases or visit extremist websites on school computers, laptops or tablets. Teachers are encouraged to look for a pattern of behaviour rather than raise the alarm after a single warning.This software is being offered in an effort to help schools comply with the Counter Terrorism and Security Act, which puts the onus on schools to prevent children from becoming terrorists, because apparently everyone is in the business of counter-terrorism these days. It must be quite nice to be in the national security business in the UK, given how the government has managed to simply foist their responsibilities upon public citizens with nothing better to do than teach the stewards of the nation's future.
And that last line in the quote, the one about how teachers are encouraged to look for ongoing patterns rather than flying off the handle if a student happens to look up "jihad" on Google? Yeah, because teachers are clearly the best able and most trained when it comes to making those kinds of judgements. They're not. You know who is? The god damned people in the counter-terrorism business. Maybe stop shirking your responsibility and do the damned job.
Those producing this software are just full of the old "the internet is just the worst" tropes, too.
Sally-Ann Griffiths, of Impero Software, which designed the program, said: "With a widely reported increase in the number of children being radicalised, it's vital that schools put measures in place to prevent pupils coming to harm online. By defining terms such as 'yodo', a phrase used by jihadist sympathisers meaning 'you only die once', the glossary gives teachers, who are part of the solution to the problem, the tools they need to identify, intervene and safeguard at-risk pupils."Heh, yodo, that's actually pretty good. Less good is someone pimping this privacy-invading, research-chilling, conversation-stopping spyware retreating to the argument-safe-house position of relying on "widely reported" non-statistics and appeals to protecting the children. On the other hand, I suppose it's quite a nice lesson for these children to find out what life will be like as an adult. Thanks to the NSA and its international counterparts, they can expect to be surveilled in much the same way when they're all growed up.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: children, extremists, schools, spy softare, teachers, terrorists, uk
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Increase in Radicalized Children?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sorry but i cant stop laughing. I think they dont realize that most of these people are just making fun of those crazies. Will they start putting people in camps for watching surprise jihad parody videos?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Increase in Radicalized Children?
Or they radically pirate music, who knows...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Priorities
This is insane. How about spending that money to increase the quality of education? Who makes these cost/benefit decisions?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
First thing to be noted here is that the West itself has turned into radicalization against anything that doesn't conform to the 'standard'. This is just one of the many examples out there.
In the name of the ever sanctified 'perfect security' we are waging a 'jihad' against anything and everything we fear (I know the term doesn't mean what it's used for). Unfortunately the rope snaps to the weakest end and our kids can't do a thing to defend themselves.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
I guess that makes me a terrorist according to law. Bye guys, I'll see you in the headlines six months later!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Time for a little NSA Haiku
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Impero Inc
838 SW 1st Ave #530
Portland, OR 97204
US 1-877-883-4370
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Increase in Radicalized Children?
Though as usual we've gone completely overboard about it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Radical.
Does the new definition include the phrase "two way street"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Why do you think the courts have been so willing to let things be done to kids which would be oppressive and unconstitutional if applied to adults? Get them used to it at a young age, and when they grow up they'll be fine with it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Priorities
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Isn't this dumber than it first looks?
Doesn't that seem to mean they're just using keyword matching and blacklists to detect "radicalization" (whatever that is, other than "Very Bad Indeed")?
Do the purveyors of this... software honestly believe that someone gets "radicalized" via certain keywords? I would have thought that "radicalization" would be a far more subtle process than that.
On the flip side, do the purveyors of this... software honestly believe that reading or viewing particular keywords will de-radicalize someone? I guess this would explain the insanity of reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance" in a religious manner every day.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Time for a little NSA Haiku
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Blackhole
I would think a much better way of reducing 'radicalization' would be to proactively discuss, at increasingly complex levels as the student grow older, the concepts that cause people to be intolerant of others, rather than expressing intolerance in the most arbitrary way possible.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Follow the money
Slap "TERRORISTS!!!!" on it and then flog it to education authorities..
Someone is being silly here, but its not the ones flogging the dead horse but perhaps the ones who are convinced that if they flog enough dead horses they will teach one to sing.
or something.
Would expect half the terms or conditions such stuff looks for to have more to do with protests than terrorists, UK, thoughtcrime is alve and well.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Increase in Radicalized Children?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Children can be terrorists?
Then again, here in the US, when a child engages in unwanted violence (e.g. pretending a banana or a poptart is a firearm) they get suspended rather than a teacher saying "Stop it! That kind of play distresses me." (Which gets pretty good results.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
There are many kinds of evil.
For me this describes our current situation in many so called enlightened and free countries.
Some people thrive on fear and intolerance and they gleefully spread it, rubbing their hands because they gain while the rest loose.
It is slow going, but with enough patience and persistence they will push for more and more securities in order to fight the new "scary" thing. The problem is that what is acceptable today might be scary tomorrow and as we get more and more safe, escalation is all but impossible to avoid.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
What about the teachers?
How does that sound?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Priorities
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sigh...
9/11 and other radical terrorist attacks gave the governments of the free world countries the opening they've been salivating over for decades. So of course they took it for an opening and have been terrorizing their citizens and destroying the fundamental human rights ever since.
Pissed off adults talking about the inhumane and illegal antics of their governments are overheard by their children, and *gasp* they talk about it at school.
The solution isn't more illegal monitoring and witch-hunt reporting.
The solution is to put the genie back in the bottle or destroy the genie and start over.
The formerly free world countries are cruising for a bruising. At some point, they will take that one step too far and that will be it. The people will take Thomas Jefferson's advice and it will be game over for the current political structures in these nations.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Isn't this dumber than it first looks?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Increase in Radicalized Children?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: What about the teachers?
The problem is the government, not the teachers or students.
Stop spying on your citizens. Stop killing people that disagree with the treasonous / traitorous activities of their government.
Stop thinking that they are above the laws of their nations.
Stop thinking that the people will put up with anything as long as it's "for the war on terror" or "think of the children". Right now, the best thing we could do for our children would be to throw off the yoke of the current governments and start over fresh. Go back to the basics that clearly state that the government is there for the people, under the control OF the people and is arranged BY the people.
In the United States, I'd say we need a continental congress to throw out the entire current executive branch, scrub all of the graft, greed and corruption in the legislative branch, and remove the foggy lenses from the judicial branch so that they can clearly READ the laws they are there to enforce, not use whatever inane drivel the alphabet organizations give them.
The bill of rights is pretty damned self explanatory and isn't up to interpretation. It's black and white, and the current activities of the U.S. Government are completely unconstitutional, illegal and are the treasonous actions of the executive branch traitors to this country.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The solution is out there:
http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/12/nsa-anti-surveillance-suggestion-operati
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: What about the teachers?
Then maybe the government officials supporting this kind of stuff should be the first. Put cameras throughout their homes. Make them wear microphones that record every word they say and GPS ankle bracelets that track their moves. And then make it all publicly available so that we can keep an eye on them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Increase in Radicalized Children?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Priorities
It was outsourced to BAE Systems a few years ago.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Time for a little NSA Haiku
words like "useless" and "failed" are entirely dependent on a projects success criteria. And a project can have multiple success criteria.
Granted, the "obvious" success criteria is "find terrorists". But there are other, not quite so obvious potential success criteria here. Examples include, but aren't limited to: