Last year, a student in Minneapolis was outed when school administrators contacted their parents after a surveillance software flagged LGBTQ keywords in their writing, and schools’ abilities to screen students’ writings are becoming more and more invasive.

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A recent survey by the Center for Democracy and Technology showed that 81 percent of teachers report their schools are now using surveillance software to monitor students. One particular software used by schools around the country is Gaggle, which surveils school computers and student accounts. The use of Gaggle has resulted in the constant monitoring of students through their Gmail and Microsoft Office accounts, even when at home using personal devices. Gaggle even monitors in real time the content being written by students on Google Docs.

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Gaggle flags the terms “lesbian,” “gay,” and “transgender” as sexual content that is reported to human reviewers at the company to determine if it should be passed along to school staff. Gaggle’s CEO, Jeff Patterson, defended the policy of flagging LGBTQ content as a means to protect students from bullying.

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Prior to the pandemic, 43 percent of schools had device distribution programs; now, 86 percent do.