Amazon-owned Ring and Flock Broke Up. Privacy Experts Ask: Should Schools, Too?
There鈥檚 an innate tension between school safety and students鈥� civil rights. 蜜桃影视鈥檚 Mark Keierleber keeps you up to date on the news you need to know.
;)
Education news and commentary, delivered right to your inbox.
Sign up for 蜜桃影视 newsletter.
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.
Milo went missing.
Yet it wasn鈥檛 the lost puppy that gave people the jitters 鈥� it was the promise behind the story: that a communitywide web of home security systems could transform a neighborhood into a 鈥淪earch Party.鈥�
The Super Bowl commercial set off public backlash against two leading surveillance companies: Amazon, which owns Ring doorbell cameras, and Flock Safety, which makes license plate reader cameras. Within days, the e-commerce giant announced it was ditching a planned partnership with Atlanta-based Flock.
Privacy advocates said the breakup represented a rare, high-profile retreat from the expansion of surveillance-driven policing 鈥� and that school leaders should take note.
鈥淭he fact that Amazon is reconsidering their relationship with Flock should be a very large and glaring sign that schools should also perhaps reconsider that relationship,鈥� said Kristin Woelfel, policy counsel for equity in civic technology at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology.
In an investigation last week, 蜜桃影视 revealed that police nationwide routinely tapped into school district Flock cameras to assist President Donald Trump鈥檚 mass immigration crackdown, which has also led to public outcry and protest over the U.S. Department of Homeland Security鈥檚 unprecedented surveillance tactics.
You can also listen to me talk about my latest reporting on the and on on San Francisco’s KALW public radio.
In the news
The latest in Trump鈥檚 immigration crackdown: A Georgia elementary school teacher was killed this week while driving to work when a man being chased by federal immigration agents rammed into her vehicle. |
- Conservative advocacy group Defending Education has built a database of some 700 school districts nationally that have adopted policies restricting federal immigration agents’ access to campuses. |
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, who repeatedly denied that federal agents were targeting schools, is stepping down. |
Instagram and other Meta-owned social media apps have navigated youth safety 鈥渋n a reasonable way,鈥� company CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified Wednesday in a courtroom filled with parents who have accused the company and other tech giants of hooking their children on the platforms and decimating their mental health. |
鈥榃orried that I was going to die鈥�: Georgia high schoolers opened up this week about the horrors of getting shot during the 2024 Apalachee High School shooting that led to the deaths of two teachers and two students. Students鈥� testimonies came during a criminal trial accusing the alleged shooter鈥檚 father of recklessness and failure to prevent the tragedy. |
Sign-up for the School (in)Security newsletter.
Get the most critical news and information about students' rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox.
Should schools call child protective services on students who are chronically absent? Debate has ensued. |
- A Georgia father has been arrested on allegations that each of his two sons has missed nearly 400 days of school. One is an elementary school student, while the other is in middle school. |
In a significant departure from past years, the Education Department鈥檚 civil rights division didn鈥檛 close any sexual harassment and assault cases involving K-12 schools in 2025, after the Trump administration slashed the agency and purged its caseload. |
ICYMI @The74
Emotional Support
蜜桃影视 is proud to announce we鈥檝e hired Simon and Max, who joined reporter Lauren Wagner a few weeks ago at our growing Nebraska bureau.
Did you use this article in your work?
We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.
