Children revolt against classroom CCTV

In a speech two weeks ago, Jack Straw mocked my suggestion that Britain’s pupils were being groomed for the surveillance society. I wonder how the justice secretary reacts to a story from Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, Essex, where pupils walked out of classrooms that were fitted with CCTV cameras – on the grounds that their civil liberties were being breached – and refused to return until the camera system had been turned off.

Straw would no doubt dismiss this incident with the same ease with which he has slunk away from accusations about overcharging the taxpayer for his council tax.

But for the rest of us the story in the Waltham Forest Guardian is pure joy to read. This splendid group of pupils wore masks when they returned to class.

The school, a mixed comprehensive, is at the cutting edge of surveillance technology and has already drawn criticism from parents after introducing finger-scanning technology it its canteen. It is astonishing that schools are spending public money on these surveillance systems, which, whatever Straw says, are grooming pupils for life in a society in which they may expect to be watched at every moment of the day.

Clearly the headmaster, Chris Seward, needs a lesson or two about the essential right of privacy from his own pupils. However this looks like being delivered by the information commissioner, who has been contacted by parents and Epping Forest’s Conservative MP, Eleanor Laing, a shadow minister for justice.

via Children revolt against classroom CCTV | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.