Is the mandatory use of Google products at school something to be concerned about?

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At my school we are given Chromebooks and we use those to do most of our work these days. On said Chromebooks we use Google Docs and Slides which is automatically saved to Drive, and which we then must upload to Classroom. Even if we do the work on our notebooks we must take pictures and upload them to Google Classroom.

Of course Google accounts are made with our real names too (non-consenusally? We’ve had these accounts for 6-8 years and a small child does not have the mental faculties to make the right choice, at least I don’t remember explicitly stating that I do want these accounts to be created).

Heavily considering just doing everything possible on paper and handing it to the teacher in person. Some people will see me as some crazy conspiracy theorist but whatever. The reason I’m only considering it and have not settled on it yet is because last semester one of my classmates was unable to upload pictures to Classroom for reasons different than mine, and I believe their grades took a hit because of that.

Anyway, is there someone else here that was or is in the same situation as me? What did you end up doing about it? How did it work out for you?

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This isn’t to discount how invasive Google may be in the education sector, but I think your best bet it to compartmentalize if you can. Only use the school laptop and account for school. Don’t do anything personal on it and avoid wasting time on it as well. That way Google and your school see as little of you through your account and the only thing coming through is expected schoolwork.

I say the same and do the same for a work computer. The device ultimately is managed by the IT department of the organization. I can protect my privacy against other actors, but a school or employer is trusted implicitly and thus there’s not much you can except to limit what information passes through.

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Heavy agree on the suggestion to only use for school purposes, and also worth noting that at least in the US there are laws around sharing and use of children’s education-related information (which applies to the schools themselves but likely also influences the agreements in place between Google and the schools, though I don’t know the agreements firsthand) and it is likely they are not using the data in the same way they do with consumer accounts.

The most likely benefit Google gets out of pushing their products in schools is it gets the students familiar with their products and more likely to pick them for their personal and later on work needs where they are able to profit more directly either through data mining or more lucrative commercial deals with businesses.

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Others in this thread suggest compartmentalization, and that may very well be all that you can achieve given your circumstances, but I don’t think you should think compartmentalization alone is acceptable. I see two reasons to go further.

  1. Practical privacy and security risks.
  2. Opposition to technological dehumanization.

I don’t know what data Google actually collects and how they process it, but I imagine it does or will (in addition to standard PII) collect, analyze, categorize, rank, evaluate etc. students’ school work, academic performance, skills/talents, personal preferences, biometrics, writing style, religious views, political persuasion and many other characteristics, which could be leaked or abused with wide-ranging consequences. I believe schools not only employ Google technology but are also somewhat controlled by it, and the technology erases the humanity in education in a variety of ways. Google among other big tech companies are attempting to normalize surveillance and digital exploitation in schools with the aim of instilling that into current and future school students, eventually eradicating the belief that privacy is important. I despise the parents, teachers, school principals, governments and big tech who think this dehumanization is acceptable.

Children who are incapable of consenting should not be subject to this kind of system against their will. The parents, teachers, school principals, governments and big tech who willingly subject children to that system against their will should be ashamed of themselves.

That is how school work was done, and it worked just fine. Some schools still do that. In today’s techno-authoritarian society, complying with the system further normalizes dehumanization, and privacy needs to be actively maintained. I recognize doing that today goes against a techno-authoritarian school system upheld by authoritarians and groupthink, so in that context that sounds like a courageous and admirable thing to do. Give it a try as far as you’re willing to try, and see how it goes.

If what you believe is true, your school should be fixing a broken system, not punishing its students. Did your classmate appeal to the school to get the problem resolved?

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We also have such laws, but they nonetheless aren’t very assuring, at least to me. There was some lawsuit made on April 4th against Google which alleges that it unlawfully collects data from school-age children. Of course, not all lawsuits’ allegations are based in reality but given the fact that it’s Google we’re talking about here there’s a high chance that they have at least some element of truth to them. After all, Google and other Big Tech companies aren’t exactly the most honest and law-abiding organizations in the world. Which is why even without this lawsuit I’d still be highly skeptical about whether Google really obeys these laws or not.

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I have never really done that many personal things or logged into personal accounts on my school Chromebook, so this would only slightly reduce the damage. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s entirely useless, some improvements in privacy > none) This also does not address my biggest concern, which has been eloquently put by @beantaco :

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This thought just crossed my mind. Are there other students, parents or teachers who are against Google in schools? If so, probably a long shot, but it may be worth allying with them to pressure the school to stop using it.

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I don’t think anything will change during my time there anymore (<1 year), but I’ll still try speaking to at least somebody. Probably a teacher, since my peers don’t really strike me as the type of people to care about something like that.

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I could be wrong, and this data could be old. I don’t think Google tracks minors.

Being that the suite will be the student’s interface for several years, upon becoming adults, thinking that gmail = email, familiarity of the office tools, etc., will be the adults preferred choices. So it’s kind of an early bet to get the kids familar and expect data years later due to familiarity.

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I kinda gave up because I rather prioritize my education over my animosity of Google.

As others have said just keep everything on one device, if you can’t do that then at least in a seperate browser.

And depending on where you live a lot of the time it’s not a school specific policy but a city one where schools are heavily recommended to use Google products in their curriculum because it alleviates work for the teacher.

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I will add that you can always harden your device to protect from bad actors, but you can also still see what you can get away with removing. For example, on my work machine I delete browser history after I close the browser. Is it possible that my employer is logging that anyway in a separate way? Yes. But if they are not that’s one less category of data that they have on me. You can find things like that to still mitigate your exposure even while compartmentalizing.

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Is the mandatory use of Google products at school something to be concerned about?

Yes, but it’s probably not something you can change as an individual student. Without getting too much into politics, privacy and freedom can only be advanced as part of a broader movement.

Yep, we’ve had Google in our schools for a long time. As others have suggested, the best option is to stick to using the school provided Chromebook to use exclusively for school, nothing personal. You can at least separate your personal activity and school activity pretty effectively.

I personally had to use my own device so instead I just used a dedicated browser or profile and (through a VPN) logged into my school accounts there. Sometimes I wouldn’t be required to use Google Docs specifically so instead I’d be able to do my research in a private browser and do my work in a private office suite where I’d then export and submit the document online.

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Put your foot down and start protesting at board meetings.
Speak up, opt-out, say no.

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How is compartmentalization the best option? The only thing it achieves is separation between school and non-school activities. It is at best a harm reduction technique. As I previously posted, it does not save anyone from Google’s intrusive surveillance and data collection. It also does nothing to challenge the normalization of big data surveillance and control.

Individuals can still act: opt out, refuse to comply, speak up, etc, but according to OP it is difficult for individuals in this situation to act. Then, the only real solution to this problem that I see is collective political action: form alliances who are opposed to Google in schools, formulate a plan to stop it, enact it.

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You answered your own question:

Which is also what I said:

And for what it’s worth, it should be pretty effective if you take compartmentalization to the max since you won’t really be giving away what you’re interested in nor will you reveal too much about your personal habits. But yes, it falls short of being able to opt-out of Google which is where we loop back around to the fact this is a political issue that (for most people) can only be challenged collectively.

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Why do you believe I answered my own question?? My question asks why you believe compartmentalization is the best option. My post says that is not true.

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Board meetings? I’m just a student, not some kind of teacher or staff member. (This is OP speaking, for some reason I got put into a different anonymous profile and I can’t seem to get my old one back)

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I don’t know about that. In many essays, for example, you are asked to write about your interests, habits, opinions, etc. (Again, this is my main concern, and I do not trust Google to not collect data) Though I am less concerned with sending Google something like my math homework, for example.

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Have you considered doing things on paper rather than a computer?

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In my opinion, for work and school, work with whatever they give you. Keep it separate from what you do in your private life. Generally, companies and schools have a separate privacy agreements with Google, Microsoft etc.

And to be transparent, I am actually happy that we are using Microsoft for example. This allows me to discover the products, work with Copilot without worrying much about privacy. Because again, it is related to work, and it is between the companies.

Don´t overthink it.