Glendale High School Students’ Privacy ‘Infringement’

DEREK WU
Staff Writer

Social media is a very important aspect to adolescents in the 21st century, who update, tweet and post many detail of their lives. Recently, Glendale High School, a member of the third-largest school district in Los Angeles County, hired a company, Geo Listening, to track about 13,000 middle and high school students via social media to search for any online bullying, online posting of graffiti and generally unacceptable behavior.

The company is not “hacking” profiles, controlling student usage of social media and is not asking students for their passwords; it is simply monitoring students’ public profiles. The school district has the right to view the profiles of their students to improve the school environment, as it is its responsibility to make its schools safer such as preventing bullying. This newly enforced program is beneficial in persuading students to change their profile settings to private, as the program shows the students how easy it is for a stranger to access a student’s personal information . The program will also force students to think twice before posting anything inappropriate that could lead them into trouble.

However, a researcher from UCLA called the program “big brother-ish,” comparing it to online monitoring by the government and questioning Glendale High School’s stalker-like, abusive methods. While some may consider this program inappropriate, the social media monitoring service only investigates public profiles of students-unlike a big brother program which investigates private information-and leaves private material confidential.

Students interviewed at Glendale High School said that if this policy could prevent suicide or bullying, they would not mind the administrators knowing a few extra details about their lives. Parents also agreed for safety concerns. This program is beneficial to students and parents, by preventing any further crimes and bullying,without causing any legal and privacy issues.