Cyber bullying has become a major issue in recent years and the debate on how to handle this issue has become increasingly important. Is it a parent’s job to monitor their kids’ social media accounts or should public school systems get involved? Many people believe there needs to be a balance between parental monitoring and school involvement. Students need to be protected from online dangers but there privacy also needs to be protected.

The Glendale school district in Los Angeles hired a tech firm, Geo Listening, to monitor students’ social networking sites for keywords related to cyber bullying, drug use and school violence. They can see exactly what they have typed, where they have been and what they have been doing. “These could be posts that are initiated from school, or not; using school-owned technology, or not. The technology also allows for the flagging and reporting of drug use or class-cutting – or really anything publicly posted by a student that could be viewed as problematic to the school”, said Justin W. Patchin.

This program may be increasing the schools sense of security but it is making the students feel like their privacy and security has been taken away. “..but students will feel their speech chilled knowing that the school district is watching,” said Anupam Chander. Students may behave differently online if they know that school officials are watching everything they do. This may be a good thing but it will most likely have negative side effects.

According to CNN’s Kelly Wallace, it has cost the Glendale school district 40,500 dollars annually to monitor all of their students’ social media sites. Is this an appropriate place to put school resources? Forty thousand dollars could be used for several other programs in the school system such as programs to educate parents and students about the Internet in general, but specifically social media. If parents are more aware of the social media sites their children are using they can more effectively regulate and monitor them without a lot of school interference. Also, if students are taught how to behave in an appropriate manner online by their parents and by school officials it will reduce incidents of cyber bullying. It is understandable that this is a big job for parents but it will require less invasive measures from school officials to prevent cyber bullying.

However, it is not reasonable to say that school monitoring to combat cyber bullying is ineffective because it has not been in place or researched for a long enough period of time. In the instance that it does stop or reduce school violence and self-harm significantly, the money invested in the tech firm may be worthy in the eyes of most.

The main issue with tracking students is the violation of privacy. “It’s students’ expression of their own thoughts and feelings to their friends,” said Young Cho, student at Herbert Hoover High School to the Los Angeles Times, “For the school to intrude in that area – I understand they can do it, but I don’t think it’s right.”

Many people, especially students, feel as if it is an invasion of their right to privacy. However, many would argue that if students are posting to public websites anyways it doesn’t matter if the school chooses to monitor their posts. At my high school there was an employee who was hired to monitor our social media accounts in order to maintain school security. I never felt like my privacy was being violated because any time I posted on social media I was aware that anyone, including my school officials, could see it. It all depends on the person and how educated they are about the Internet and social media.

In conclusion, tracking and monitoring students to combat serious issues, such as bullying and other violence can be effective if it is used under the right circumstances. The information would need to be highly secure with access granted to a minimal amount of people. It would need to be deleted after a certain number of days. Students and parents would also need to be aware of the monitoring. In addition to schools monitoring for keywords and phrases on social media sites, it is equally important for the school system to educate students on privacy issues and the dangers of bullying on the Internet (and in reality). The answer is not a clear cut yes or no because this issue is a lot more complicated than that. Students’ privacy is at risk when using a system like this but their safety is at risk if nothing is done about the issue.

List of Resources:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0917/Cyberbullying-Should-schools-police-students-social-media-accounts-video

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/08/living/schools-of-thought-social-media-monitoring-students/

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2013/0917/Cyberbullying-Should-schools-police-students-social-media-accounts-video

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/14/us/california-schools-monitor-social-media/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/glendale-district-social-media_n_3824189.html

Imagine this: It’s 2007 and you are Dick Cheney. You have just gotten a heart defibrillator to help with your irregular heart rate and rhythm. It turns out that your defibrillator is wirelessly connected to the Internet, which allows your doctor to monitor you from remote locations. Now this might become a problem considering you’re the vice president of the United States and now have something implanted in your body that has the potential to be hacked into, and possibly used to stalk, injure, or even kill you. (For further information look here.) The issues in heart defibrillators themselves are not incredibly worrisome, as Barnaby J. Feder discusses in this article. The larger issue that presents itself is the Internet of Things as a whole, which is why I believe the FTC should regulate it.

The Internet of Things, also known as the “world’s nervous system”, is a mass of web connected sensors and controllers. Essentially, the Internet of Things can receive inputs form the physical environment and act on them (for example, the sensors might detect a sound, and the controllers might act on those senses.) Massive amounts of data can be collected through the Internet of Things, presenting quite a few issues (which are the reasons I think it should be regulated.)

First, data is often collected without consent. One huge example is the first story Edward Snowden revealed. Basically, the NSA was given the authority to collect months worth of Verizon subscribers’ data without them knowing about it. This obviously poses a huge issue, as people were unaware that their data was being collected. Although some people are now aware that all cell phone companies are required to give some data they’ve collected to the government, many still are not. And even more concerning, unless the Internet of Things begins to be regulated, no one is regulating whether or not companies are telling their consumers what information they are collecting about them.

Another example I came across was about the FTC regulating the Internet of Things, including your car. One of the problems associated with this situation, as well as other similar situations, is that personal information will be shared. As the geolocation of motor vehicles is collected, information is also being collected about the consumer. It will be known precisely where and when the consumer is going, and businesses would easily be able to sell this information to data brokers, who in turn would be able to resell the information to different businesses. Collecting this information can also have effects on the price of insurance and the security of connected cars.

The second reason I think regulating the Internet of Things is a good idea is that the information these companies and organizations are collecting can actually be very dangerous to the consumer. If the FTC isn’t regulating the security of the information being collected, who knows what information is going where. People can steal information, and when there is a lot of information stored about many consumers, it poses a threat to all of them. This can also be the case with more private information like home security systems, which would possibly pose an even greater threat to the individual.

Although I believe regulating the Internet of Things is the best thing to do, it would also be a very difficult task. Regulating the Internet of Things would cost time and money that isn’t currently being spent on it, and it may be difficult to do. Even if regulation of the Internet of Things is implemented, should consumers have the right to opt out of data collection? Or should it be mandatory? There are definitely pros and cons of regulating the Internet of Things.

The FTC is here to protect our privacy and ensure consumer protection. If the FTC were to adopt regulations governing how data from inanimate objects is collected, used, stored and accessed, we, as citizens of the United States, would be more fully protected. In Alice E. Marwick’s article titled How Your Data Are Being Deeply Mined (a reading from earlier this year), she makes the point that people who are concerned with privacy matters must “continue to demand that checks and balances be applied to these private corporations…While closer scrutiny of the NSA is necessary and needed, we must apply equal pressure to private corporations to ensure that seemingly harmless targeted mail campaigns and advertisements do not give way to insidious and dangerous violations of personal privacy.” Marwick also makes the point that technology is changing faster than our current consumer protection laws, which means the FTC adopting new regulations is important and crucial if something like that were to be effective. Ultimately, I believe the benefits of regulating the Internet of Things outweighs the cons, and the FTC should begin regulating in order to ensure the safety of the consumer.

1. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2636073
2. http://www.securityprivacyandthelaw.com/2014/10/the-ftc-wants-to-regulate-the-internet-of-things-including-your-car/
3. The New York Review of Books: How Your Data Are Being Deeply Mined by Alice E. Marwick
4. http://mashable.com/2013/06/05/verizon-nsa-phone-records/
5. http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/overview/article/iot_video.html
6. http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Arrhythmia/PreventionTreatmentofArrhythmia/Implantable-Cardioverter-Defibrillator-ICD_UCM_448478_Article.jsp
7. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/12/business/12heart-web.html?_r=1&
8. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/20/us/dick-cheney-gupta-interview/

Every living person has DNA. Even though humans share 99.9% of that DNA, that .1% in each person is enough to make us each unique. That uniqueness is also enough for the FBI to profile criminals. In 1998, the FBI introduced the National DNA Index System (NDIS) for law enforcement purposes¹. This system is the FBI equivalent of similar systems that were being used by 41 states and Great Britain going back to seven years. Legally, the FBI can only catalogue DNA that’s been obtained from criminals, crime scenes, and unidentified human remains. This has proven to be an effective system in solving a number of crimes, but can it be an effective system in preventing future lawbreakers from causing harm?

The idea is that there can be a database that holds the DNA of every U.S. citizen from birth. Currently, genetic cataloguing is only permitted for the NDIS for criminal investigations, but there is potential for a system that documents the genetic code for each and every citizen. I see that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks in the idea of a public database. The system would function similar to current birth certificates and social security numbers. A newborn is processed at birth, and he or she can use that information later in life to prove he or she is a citizen. It’s only another form of documentation.

Although I find the benefits obvious, some people would be reluctant for such a system to exist. And they’re not wrong to be reluctant. A person’s DNA is his and his alone. Even if that person were to somehow clone himself, he and his clone would still be affected by epigenetics. This is information that a person may want to keep private. At the moment, unless that person is suspected of a crime, that information will be protected.

The key word there is suspected. The DNA databases currently in the world are mostly run by government agencies that are built around taking down criminals. They are able to gain access it an innocent person’s DNA with a warrant². For instance, if a person is suspected of a crime, but the police can’t find enough evidence for a warrant, they can possible retrieve another warrant for a completely different crime and take that persons DNA. They can then use that DNA for the first case. The issue here is that innocent people will have their DNA in a system that’s shared with criminals. This may send the wrong message about a person if someone finds out that they’re in this database.

Currently, there are some policies to remove a person’s genetic information from a database³. In 2008, after a juvenile in the U.K. fought to have his information removed from a database, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that genetic information storage was a violation was a violation of privacy.  The U.K. was required to purge the information from their database, with the conditions that people not convicted with DNA evidence have their information purged immediately and criminals have their information purged five years after a case.

The big problem with this case is that it only pertains to databases that collect criminal DNA, not that every citizen of a nation. People wouldn’t have their information automatically purged after a period of time. If anything, a public database would act similar to electronic medical records⁴. Currently, medical providers are switching to electronic systems to transfer medical data, and a big concern is how much control the patients have over this data. Anybody with permission to access the system can view this data. A public DNA database will behave similarly, giving access to genetic information to anyone with permission.

How easy would it be for a corporation to get permission for this system? If a drug company gained access, they would have the genetic records of everyone in the system’s country. They could then target individuals with ads based on the composition of their DNA. If a person’s DNA shares traits with other genetic information that indicates a person may have diabetes, that person may be spammed with adverts for blood strips and insulin.

And let’s say that everyone has access to the system, no matter who they are. Companies would obviously target everyone, but there is a more extreme example that could come out of this. There was a movie in 1997 called Gattaca that had a social class system based on DNA. People with “inferior DNA” are on the lower classes and people with “superior DNA” are on the upper classes. This is an extreme example, but some aspects may appear in the real world. Health insurance providers may base policies on genetic structure. People could look at your DNA to determine ethnicity, and may profile a person based off of it. Maybe in another extreme example, someone would base their decision to marry based on the partner’s genetic background.

The last examples may never happen, since a public DNA database would have to be absolutely public, allowing anyone to see information. But some fears of such a database can hold true. The major point to remember is that, similar to medical records and financial histories, a DNA database is a database of personal information. It can be beneficial for documentation, though it is a large chunk of information that some people may not be comfortable having stored in a single place. Genetic information is unique to every person, so it should be dealt with in a precious manner.

¹http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v16/n11/full/nbt1198_987.html

²http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/7177152.stm

³http://bigstory.ap.org/article/spread-dna-databases-sparks-ethical-concerns

⁴http://ctmirror.org/medical-records-going-digital-patient-control-becomes-subject-debate/