Schools Are Surveiling Student Emails for Suicide Risks, Raising ACLU Concerns

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From The Detroit News: “Thirty-one Michigan school districts are using a controversial surveillance service that reads students’ schoolĀ emailsĀ to identifyĀ students in crisis and alert school officials.

The Michigan schools are among roughly 1,400 districts across the United States that have hired Gaggle, an Illinois-based company, to useĀ artificial intelligence and staffĀ to search nearly 4 billion emails and school-email based documents last school year forĀ examples of bullying, inappropriate behaviors, school violenceĀ and other harmful situations inside students’ communications.

The practice has raised concerns among civil libertarians. But the company claims to have prevented 722 suicides last school year based on feedback from school officials on specific cases.”

Article ā†’Ā­

1 COMMENT

  1. Big brother is alive.

    “McCullough said the company does not examine students’ social media posts because that is considered private information.” If that is true, then why is Facebook monitoring people’s Facebook posts for information about suicide risk?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-using-ai-to-try-to-predict-if-youre-suicidal-2018-12?op=1

    And since psychiatric hospitalizations vastly increase the likelihood of suicide, rather than decreasing the risk of suicide.

    “Taking psychiatric medications makes people nearly 6 times more likely to kill themselves, while having spent time in the previous year in a psychiatric hospital makes them over 44 times more likely to kill themselves.”

    https://www.madinamerica.com/2014/09/suicides-rise-increasing-psychiatric-involvement/

    I’m quite certain that until the “mental health” workers learn how to help suicidal people, rather than increase the chances a person will commit suicide by 44 times. AI should not be used to spy on people’s Facebook posts or their emails for information about potential suicides.

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