A look at student activity monitoring software GoGuardian, whose usage in US schools exploded during lockdowns as some say it adds to kids' psychological strain
The pandemic caused schools to embrace laptops, tablets, Zoom, and an app called GoGuardian that tracks everything students (and, sometimes, parents) do online. Tweets: @talkpoverty , @bw , @gawkgawkthwack , @il_fps , @priyasideas , @josheidelson , @tsgiles , @privacydigest , @mhbergen , and @eliseecoff Tweets: @talkpoverty : When education went online, surveillance followed. The scope of that surveillance was incredibly wide. But low-income people are used to surrendering their privacy to access benefits and services. https://www.bloomberg.com/... @bw : Big Teacher is watching. An app called GoGuardian tracks everything students (and, sometimes, parents) do online https://www.bloomberg.com/... Michelle Throatbama / @gawkgawkthwack : One day we're gonna have to acknowledge, confront & dismantle the secret chokehold big data has on us https://twitter.com/... Illinois Families / @il_fps : “No matter where kids are, Hinderliter watches GoGuardian closely every day. During the pandemic, she watched bills get paid and unemployment forms get filled out on student laptops, knowing her kids' Chromebooks were often the only computers at home.” https://www.bloomberg.com/... Priya Anand / @priyasideas : Since the pandemic, schools have become surveillance hubs. NYC schools and entire states use GoGuardian, which tracks & analyzes the online activity of 23 million+ students across the country story for @BW with @mhbergen https://www.bloomberg.com/... Josh Eidelson / @josheidelson : “They pretty much know that they're being monitored 24/7...” https://www.bloomberg.com/... @BW From the dream team: A @Priyasideas & @mhbergen collab Tom Giles / @tsgiles : Some of the stuff teachers see students searching for: guitar tutorials, faming simulation games, “sugar daddy dating” https://twitter.com/... @privacydigest : How GoGuardian AI Spyware Took Over Schools, Student Devices During Covid - Bloomberg The pandemic caused schools to embrace laptops, tablets, Zoom, and an app called GoGuardian that tracks everything students (and, sometimes, parents) do online. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Mark Bergen / @mhbergen : One startup monitors, filters and analyzes the online activity of some 23 million students. You probably haven't heard of it, but your kid has. In new @BW, @Priyasideas and I looked at the tech transforming post-pandemic education. https://www.bloomberg.com/... Dr. Elise Ecoff / @eliseecoff : Well intentioned and potentially life-saving but is it a bridge too far? https://www.bloomberg.com/... via @BW
Context & Ripple Effects
School surveillance predates the pandemic: districts had already rushed into social media monitoring programs with little regard for effectiveness or privacy, and Gaggle was running AI-plus-human-moderator review of about 5M students' online activity by late 2019. What changed in 2020 was scale and intimacy — lockdowns put district-issued laptops and tablets in students' homes, and GoGuardian rode that hardware wave to track everything they did on them.
The Bloomberg piece lands on a base of more than 23 million students under GoGuardian's analysis, with critics arguing the always-on watching adds psychological strain and falls hardest on low-income families already accustomed to surrendering privacy for access to services. The through-line matters because this is not a one-off app story — it is the moment a crisis tool became default infrastructure.
First-order effects
- Districts that handed out devices during lockdowns now operate continuous activity monitoring as standard practice, with GoGuardian tracking over 23 million students — and sometimes their parents — across school and home use.
- Students and families bear the immediate cost flagged in the reporting: heightened psychological strain from being watched around the clock, concentrated among low-income households with the least ability to opt out.
Second-order effects
- Rival vendors like Gaggle compete in the same market on ever-broader detection claims, pushing the category toward wider scanning rather than narrower — a race set off when schools first adopted these tools hastily for safety.
- Normalizing 24/7 observation extends beyond laptops: schools including Syracuse U. had already begun tracking students' phones for attendance, and each new channel desensitizes students further to institutional surveillance.
Third-order effects
- The pattern holds past the emergency: by 2025, GoGuardian-class tools are scanning students' chatbot conversations for signs of self-harm, meaning pandemic-era monitoring contracts are becoming the substrate for AI-era surveillance of how kids think and ask questions.
- If safety justifies each expansion, expect pressure for explicit governance — consent standards, retention limits, or state-level rules — as the gap between what schools can monitor and what they may monitor keeps widening.
The trend: US student surveillance is compounding — from social media scans to lockdown device tracking to AI review of chatbot conversations — turning crisis-era monitoring into permanent, expanding educational infrastructure.