Linewize is Always Watching

By Ryan Afable

At what point do you disregard privacy for higher security? Where should we draw the line, and when has that line been crossed? This is something that many students have been asking themselves with the new addition of Linewize on all of the Chromebooks. Linewize is “The world’s most comprehensive site of child cyber safety and wellbeing solutions.”  Which is on the front page of their website.

     One of the main features of Linewize is the filter. The first part of it is the image blurring. Whenever you search something on google or any site the built in AI does a scan across your screen at every image. This causes immense lag for the chromebooks and makes them almost unusable at some points. The filtering also does not seem to have any set things to look at. Leading to many things being blocked that should not be blocked while things that should be aren’t, such as a picture of Napoleon on a horse while there is a painting of an execution from the French Revolution right next to it. 

     The next feature is the monitoring of your chromebooks. Linewize is constantly scanning your chromebook for anything and if they find something that is deemed inappropriate they will block the site meaning you will not be able to interact with anything related to the site. But, this has its own flaws, the main one is that they blocked Benicia High’s own news site The Paw. They also blocked Control D that was talking about the best school filtering systems which seems a little off.

    There is also how parents can opt in to gain parental control on Linewize too which could lead to parents seeing something that they should not see and put said student in a more awkward situation. Imagine you are a kid who has been questioning your sexuality but you are worried about how they would react. Well, using Linewize your parents check your chromebook and see what you have been googling. This could put the student in a worse situation and especially if the parents are not accepting.

     Overall Linewize is not the move that the district should move towards. It puts students in more stress and paranoia that should not be pushed.