It’s official: Big Brother isn’t just watching you—he’s now monitoring your kids, too, and doing it with the kind of overzealous incompetence only a bureaucratic system could love. Schools across America are deploying AI-powered surveillance software on student-issued devices to flag “dangerous” behavior, claiming it’s to prevent self-harm. Sounds noble in theory, right? In practice, it’s a one-way ticket to chaos, trauma, and a complete disregard for basic privacy.
Take the case of a 17-year-old in Neosho, Missouri, who woke up in the middle of the night to find police at her door. Was she caught plotting some nefarious scheme? Nope. Her poetic musings from years ago tripped the alarm of a program called GoGuardian Beacon, which apparently thinks it’s qualified to psychoanalyze teenagers based on keystrokes. Her mother later described the ordeal as one of the worst experiences of her daughter’s life. But hey, at least the algorithm “cares.”
The rise of this intrusive technology coincided with the pandemic-era boom in remote learning. What started as a way to keep kids connected to their education during lockdowns quickly morphed into a dystopian surveillance state. These systems scan everything students type, flagging keywords that allegedly indicate they might harm themselves. But as we’ve seen, this “help” often looks more like paranoia on steroids.
Here’s the kicker: no one knows if these systems even work. Companies behind these tools, like GoGuardian, haven’t provided data to prove their accuracy or effectiveness. Yet they’re out there, deploying algorithms to make split-second decisions about teenagers’ mental health, sometimes with catastrophic results. False alarms are rampant, sending cops into kids’ bedrooms over misunderstood text messages, creative writing exercises, or even off-hand jokes. Meanwhile, the actual mental health crisis continues unchecked.
Civil rights groups have raised valid concerns about this tech, calling it invasive and overreaching. And they’re absolutely right. Imagine being a teenager, knowing that every word you type—whether it’s a class assignment, a diary entry, or a private message to a friend—is being scrutinized by faceless AI. Forget fostering trust; this is how you create a generation that’s either paranoid about self-expression or learns to outsmart the system, which defeats the purpose entirely.
Schools are employing dubious AI-powered software to accuse teenagers of wanting to harm themselves and sending the cops to their homes as a result.https://t.co/MznoCgJGc1 pic.twitter.com/6NBlyxLcoy
— End Time Headlines (@EndTimeHeadline) December 15, 2024
Defenders of these programs, like Neosho’s police chief Ryan West, argue that even if most alerts are false, saving just one life makes it all worth it. That’s a nice soundbite, but it glosses over the human toll of these “false alerts.” Do we really believe traumatizing countless kids and normalizing police visits at 3 a.m. is the best way to address a mental health epidemic? Critics like Baltimore city councilman Ryan Dorsey think not—and he’s right to question the wisdom of sending armed officers into kids’ homes based on the digital equivalent of a hunch.
Here’s a thought: how about we invest in actual mental health resources instead of letting algorithms play armchair therapist? Hire counselors, improve access to care, and create environments where students feel comfortable seeking help without fear of triggering a digital alarm. But no, that would require thoughtful policy and genuine effort—far too much to ask when you can just outsource the problem to AI and call it a day.
It’s time to face the facts: these systems aren’t saving lives. They’re undermining trust, invading privacy, and giving police yet another excuse to intervene where they don’t belong. If this is the best solution schools can come up with, they need to go back to the drawing board—preferably without an algorithm watching over their shoulder.
