Classroom

Arvind Kejriwal's Delhi govt needs to conduct a privacy assessment and find out what value does live streaming of classrooms add to children's security.

There is no publicly available data on the kind of security protocols that will be employed to protect this data, the vetting of private firms that will be engaged to carry out this project, the centralisation of this data, the location of the server where this data will be stored and the duration for which it will be stored. Even as the project is aimed towards improving the safety of children, it endangers their mental and physical safety to a considerable degree. While the deployment is purportedly for the safety of students, there seems to be no bar on the school/government to use it for other purposes. All of these concerns also emerge with respect to the teachers’ privacy and personal data protection. But is this a “necessary and proportionate” invasion of privacy of the teachers and students? The CBSE circular mentions that CCTVs should be put in place for “vulnerable/areas”. This reflects some measure of proportionality in deployment. The current scheme subjects a 16-year-old to the same monitoring as a five-year-old. Moreover, the school would be incentivised to nudge parents towards providing consent given that they are required to make alternative arrangements for seating for students whose parents don’t consent. Knowing that they are under the constant gaze of their parents will hamper their autonomous development if they become anxious of being censured at home for their actions. Although use of CCTV and biometric based technologies is increasing across schools in various states, the decision to livestream classroom proceedings takes the use of these technologies a step further. The school environment serves as a sanctuary in the developmental years of a child. The Delhi government’s decision to give parents access to live video footage of classrooms is worrisome.