Delhi idea for eyes in classes busts privacy
CCTV cameras in classrooms. However noble the aim is, it is nothing but surveillance. It is an authoritarian term that preaches control and regulates human behaviour. The Delhi government proposes to introduce live cameras in the classrooms in government schools. Consenting parents can get a live relay to see how their wards ‘behave’ in class and how teachers teach. It seems so cosy and innocent, but it is not. Classroom surveillance not only robs students of privacy but also mentally unsettles them and teachers both as they feel so many eyes watching them intently and constantly. What if parents, best intentions in mind, want to suggest improvements?
A school is a school because teachers run it, not parents. Parent-teacher meetings are the only occasions when mothers and fathers can discuss what wards are up to. If parents can see all that happens in class, schools can turn into arenas for parental litigation. Factors that divide society can find their way into classrooms if, say, a parent wonders why students of different castes or communities share a bench.
We already live in times when young students get cruel ideas like refusing meals prepared by the cook on the grounds of caste. Imagine the mayhem when cameras go live: What if students and teachers ‘act’ out their roles for the cameras and be on their ‘best behaviour’? The feed is live, but reel and not necessarily real. Will the cameras encourage a teacher-student nexus to fool the watching parent?
This may be new to India but common in both the democratic West and authoritarian China. In the latter, cameras have even entered people’s homes. In the US and the UK, the cameras came in to monitor mask compliance during the Covid lockdown. The masks are gone, but the cameras remain. Now it is about students’ security. But their cameras which use face-recognition technology can do more than detect guns. They can collect personal data. That is a breach of privacy. There is always the danger of the data—live feed as in the case of the Delhi government proposal—being manipulated, misused or misinterpreted. By the way, does the Delhi government know how many parents are tech savvy to watch the expensive life feed?