Does your school use suicide prevention software?
Student mental health has become a pressing concern, leading many educational institutions to adopt suicide prevention software. This technology, developed by companies like Gaggle, GoGuardian Beacon, Bark, and Securly, monitors students' digital interactions, analyzing everything from Google searches to emails to text messages to schoolwork. The goal is to identify the first signs of distress or suicidal thoughts. While the intent is to save lives, this raises significant privacy concerns, sparking a debate about the balance between protecting students and respecting their individual privacy. These tools, while sometimes criticized for false positives – such as alerts triggered by innocuous searches…