Getting kids used to surveillance

You must have heard the fracas about Glendale Unified School District in California which recently hired Geo Listening at the princely sum of $40,500 per year to monitor the public social media activity of their 27,000 students both in and out of school hours (if this is news to you see Network World’s Privacy and Security Fanatic blog post School starts mass social media surveillance of students for their ‘safety’).

While some may feel that the invasion of privacy in this case is minimal as everything being tracked is, in fact, public might I point out that this monitoring will have the benefit of getting children used to the idea of being monitored. After all, monitoring by the Man is nothing new; it’s been going on since the 50’s and the sooner today’s youth gets used to having not just their metadata but their social media activity scrutinized the better.

Indeed, as school buses are becoming heavily monitored with student tracking and video surveillance so should classrooms and lunch rooms be. And evry other nook and cranny … it would be foolish to leave anything out when it’s so easy to do.

Let us leave no stone, social media account, or school facility unturned or unsurveilled in our quest … to do exactly what? I have no idea but folks, it’s for Homeand Security and it’s for the children … it’s all for the childern.

Gibbs’ tongue is where you might expect it to be … comment below or to gearhead@gibbs.com and follow him on Twitter, App.net, and Facebook.