Is My School Allowed to Do This?
- Thread starter Heartcafe
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There's two sides to this. Firstly, in your favour, you have a right for your data and communications not to be snooped on. If you were to use one of their phones, that would not entitle them to listen in on it.
However, they could stop you calling premium lines and abroad, as this incurs cost to them. For similar reasons, they may end up traffic shaping and blocking some sites with typically high bandwidth profiles. Similarly, they may want to restrict content to keep usage down , as it is a shared service that could be impaired by allowing everyone to access high-demand high-use type websites, such as facebook. Incurring costs isn't really something that'd (directly) effect providing internet access, only how well the service is provided to many individuals.
I thin with many countries declaring access to the internet to be an intrinsic human right (or at least something close to that), this does make me wonder what kind of access that means. All humans have a right to use facebook? Maybe... I think the intention is more that all humans have the right to use wikipedia, or email, or many of the wonderful enabling technologies and services available through it, and arguably social networks can have a positive effects too. However, that right is mostly served by internet being available 'freely' at libraries and schools... places where it may be time limited and content restricted. Arguably they are not providing the unfettered access you may have a right to- are they obliged to do so?
Ultimately, using such things during class is counter to education and I certainly think they have a right to manage your behaviour and keep you focused on studying during classes and study breaks. However, in your recreational time, I'd argue they have no such rights. However, you have no such rights to demand they provided facebook at all if they had no internet, so there's a false sense of entitlement when you're provided with some restricted internet (or people circumvent those restrictions).
Ultimately, if you need facebook, get a phone with a data connection (that can act as a hotspot, if you want to hookup your laptop), and only use it outside of class. Hell, if you're feeling enterprising, offer up your phone hotspot to other people for a nominal charge (20p/cents) and you may end up covering a fair chunk of your phone bill too. As long as you're using it responsibly and outside of class, I'd fight tooth and nail for your right to do so.
However, they could stop you calling premium lines and abroad, as this incurs cost to them. For similar reasons, they may end up traffic shaping and blocking some sites with typically high bandwidth profiles. Similarly, they may want to restrict content to keep usage down , as it is a shared service that could be impaired by allowing everyone to access high-demand high-use type websites, such as facebook. Incurring costs isn't really something that'd (directly) effect providing internet access, only how well the service is provided to many individuals.
I thin with many countries declaring access to the internet to be an intrinsic human right (or at least something close to that), this does make me wonder what kind of access that means. All humans have a right to use facebook? Maybe... I think the intention is more that all humans have the right to use wikipedia, or email, or many of the wonderful enabling technologies and services available through it, and arguably social networks can have a positive effects too. However, that right is mostly served by internet being available 'freely' at libraries and schools... places where it may be time limited and content restricted. Arguably they are not providing the unfettered access you may have a right to- are they obliged to do so?
Ultimately, using such things during class is counter to education and I certainly think they have a right to manage your behaviour and keep you focused on studying during classes and study breaks. However, in your recreational time, I'd argue they have no such rights. However, you have no such rights to demand they provided facebook at all if they had no internet, so there's a false sense of entitlement when you're provided with some restricted internet (or people circumvent those restrictions).
Ultimately, if you need facebook, get a phone with a data connection (that can act as a hotspot, if you want to hookup your laptop), and only use it outside of class. Hell, if you're feeling enterprising, offer up your phone hotspot to other people for a nominal charge (20p/cents) and you may end up covering a fair chunk of your phone bill too. As long as you're using it responsibly and outside of class, I'd fight tooth and nail for your right to do so.
Yeah they are allowed, and yes it is an over-complicated system when they could just restrict access to certain sites via their internet.
My college implemented a filtered internet wifi and a large block list on its local computers. Seems reasonable, can't have students accessing gentleman material or wasting time since we go to college to learn.
Still found ways to plant Unreal Tournament and LAN up a whole block for a tournament though.
Still found ways to plant Unreal Tournament and LAN up a whole block for a tournament though.
That is easy to get by, I do it all the time.
More of a precaution that no one cares about here.
And sure they can do it *rolls eyes*
More of a precaution that no one cares about here.
And sure they can do it *rolls eyes*
The simple answer is, if the schools contract, or "rules" say they can, then yes... here in England anyway, we have to sign and agree with all of the schools terms and conditions (if you will) before officially joining that school or college... I'd be surprised if you didn't have to sign or give any agreement to any of their rules.... technically, if you didn't sign any form of agreement, or give your consent to their terms and conditions, then they are in fact in breach of human rights... without your documented agreement, they cant force you to do anything you dont want to... that even involves leaving the classroom without permission or answering back to a teacher... same applies in most workplaces or universities.
It depends. Granted, if he just wants to get by he just needs to circumvent the system (hence the humorous gif or the perpetual-studying loop). If he wants to change the system, he needs to break it, and that requires embarrassing those who got it installed in the first place. Granted, a kid is only obligated to survive primary schooling, but until it is broken and changed, all future students will have to deal with the same crap.killer-corkonian said:
Whether or not it is legal for school faculty to spy on their students, it is certainly unethical, especially since the faculty in question cannot effectively rely on their own judgement or that of a standard set of parameters to determine either when spying should happen or what kind of information is appropriate for a student to have (hence the controversies regarding internet content control software.) Furthermore, the temptation to misuse this degree of power has proven to be too great, not only with incidents of faculty spying on (and capturing images of) students after hours in states of undress, but also incidents of students gaining access to the content of peer laptops, and incidents of faculty blackmailing students for sexual favors.
Welcome, Neo, to the real world [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-commonly_challenged_books_in_the_United_States].
It's my signature.
238U.[footnote]In the event that Escapist requires me to view a commercial before getting a code, I will simply not post. Depending on the frequency, this may temper or cease my future participation in the Escapist community. Apologies in advance, if this policy prevents me from replying to you when it is proper to do so.[/footnote]
Are you sure they do it as standard in the UK? I watched boatloads of porn in my halls in first year and nothing came of it...sms_117b said:
I work for my now old school district and have for the past two years, I know passwords and have an admin account.
So my (old) school district just plain out blocks websites, you can use proxies to get around them and such, which I and a select few actually do. You can bring your laptop in and connect to the guest wifi but that wont even let you on youtube. To get onto the hardcore wifi you have to have the certificate and an admin setup (again I can do this!! But I only ever did it for a teacher who's work laptop crashed and burned....)
All in all since they are providing the interwebz for you, and they have to face anything that their students do it's totally acceptable for them to block and not allow certain websites.
But what does irk my chain is that some computer labs throughout said school district have a program that allows them to control, lock, and look at what's on your computer screen. This program can't be used all the time because it outright kills programs like Autodesk Inventor. I don't like that I could be checking my email and my teacher or even a classmate that is playing with the teachers computer can read my emails.
I do like it when they bash the kids that are playing solitaire though :]
So my (old) school district just plain out blocks websites, you can use proxies to get around them and such, which I and a select few actually do. You can bring your laptop in and connect to the guest wifi but that wont even let you on youtube. To get onto the hardcore wifi you have to have the certificate and an admin setup (again I can do this!! But I only ever did it for a teacher who's work laptop crashed and burned....)
All in all since they are providing the interwebz for you, and they have to face anything that their students do it's totally acceptable for them to block and not allow certain websites.
But what does irk my chain is that some computer labs throughout said school district have a program that allows them to control, lock, and look at what's on your computer screen. This program can't be used all the time because it outright kills programs like Autodesk Inventor. I don't like that I could be checking my email and my teacher or even a classmate that is playing with the teachers computer can read my emails.
I do like it when they bash the kids that are playing solitaire though :]
