DPS may be accessing your child's personal, electronic information via school wifi
Does your child connect their smartphone, tablet, or laptop to Darien Public School (DPS) wifi network? If yes, DPS may be bypassing their passwords and accessing personal information including emails and browser and download history
Per Series 5000 -Students Policy 5300: "As part of the monitoring and reviewing process, the district will retain the capacity to bypass any individual password of a student or other user. The system's security aspects, such as personal passwords and the message delete function for e-mail, can be bypassed for these purposes. The district's ability to monitor and review is not restricted or neutralized by these devices."
While the policy does state "all users must be aware that they should not have any expectation of personal privacy in the use of these computer systems," it is, in our view, ambiguous and raises the following concerns:
Lack of Oversight: The policy does not provide any information as to who is responsible for the monitoring and review process. Who authorizes a DPS employee to access a student's personal information? What would constitute cause to access a student's personal information? How is the personal information of minors stored? What type of records or logs are kept related to student monitoring? How does the review process discern between personal information that is private and personal information that is eligible for monitoring? Are parents notified that their underage children are having their electronic data monitored?
Lack of Scope: The policy is broad and does not define all the types of personal, electronic information that may be monitored. Does bypassing passwords include personal email accounts such as gmail? Or is the scope of the password bypassing even broader to include social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok? Interestingly, policies for employee use of the DPS network explicitly states: "In addition,
review of emails, messages or information stored on the computer systems, which can be forensically retrieved, includes those messages and/or electronic data sent, posted and/or retrieved using social networking sites, including, but not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and MySpace." This could imply that students' personal social media accounts, including messaging within them, would be fair game for monitoring as well. Should DPS be accessing your child's private Instagram DM's, Facebook photos, or TikTok videos?Potential Lack of Transparency: Given that DPS has such broad latitude under their policy to monitor digital information on their taxpayer funded network, would iMessages sent via DPS wifi, personal emails, social media messages, etc. from members of the Administration or the Board of Education be eligible for inclusion in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the public?