Securly
“Oh nooo another student complaining about Securly! They just want to do bad stuff!”
I just want to do stuff in the first place.
First of all, Securly has been involved in controversy for years surrounding how they collect and use students’ data. They claim to be Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) compliant. From what I’ve read on official websites [1], by all technical legal standards, they are [2]. However, Securly has had multiple lawsuits related to alleged illegal collection and distribution of student data. (Trust me. Google it.)
I’ve had many personal experiences with Securly incorrectly identifying websites that they believe should be “blocked.”
When I attempted to visit the coding, code-sharing, and open-source hosting website Github, a Securly alert popped up. As I always do, I clicked the button to reveal more information, because I like knowing what category they blocked it for.
Education. They blocked a website because it was under the category education.
I’ve also noticed that many times in the past, it has blocked websites for reasons completely unrelated to the websites themselves. I use a website called Fluffle.cc, a pastebin website I use to expand my coding skills. Fluffle also has an alternative URL, Markbox.cc. The Fluffle URL isn’t blocked, but the Markbox one is. The “reason” is shown to be “other adult content.” Adult content is strictly forbidden in Fluffle/Markbox’s Terms of service [3]. Fluffle and Markbox are the same thing. Identical layout, features, information, developer–they are the same website, just under different URLs.
Another pastebin website I frequent is Rentry.co. It’s similar to Fluffle/Markbox. Rentry has two extensions, .co and .org. Rentry.co isn’t blocked, but Rentry.org is. Again, they are the same website. Rentry.org is blocked under “anonymous proxies.” The same website, different extensions, but one is blocked and one isn’t. It makes no sense. Rentry’s terms of service also prohibit illegal content [4]. They also have a detailed privacy policy that conforms to legal data collection policies [5].
Securly also allows teachers to monitor everything a student does on their device without valid reason(s). In my opinion–and the opinion of many others, including legal professionals–this is a violation of student privacy. Securly is also used to monitor high school students, which (in Massachusetts where I live and where Securly is being used at my school), have rights to things like medical privacy unless absolutely necessary, so why shouldn’t their online privacy be the same? If we teach students how to be responsible, we can protect the students themselves both in terms of online safety while still giving them their legal rights to privacy.
In situations like this, legality and morality are on the same level. There has to be a moral balance between allowing students to have privacy and monitoring them for safety and behavior.