I think the reason we need a national strategy for this is precisely because it's going to involve money. We used to create resources that were shared by schools, and those platforms would support communications for education. In other words, schools used to own their own email accounts. Schools used to own their own technology. We've moved away from that model, and we're now privatizing all of that.
There was a big debate in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, which is where I am, over Gmail accounts for kids. There was never a discussion about why my kids couldn't use their own email accounts that I purchased for them. The school just said, “no, that's it. We've consented for everybody. You're all going to have Gmail accounts. We're going to require that“.
It's similar with things like Turnitin. We're worried about plagiarism, so we're going to make everybody register for Turnitin.
The first time one of my kids was told they had to register for Turnitin, I emailed the school and said, “Have you read their privacy policy? They collect all this data and keep it, and you're associating it with my child's name. I don't consent to this.” I never heard back. That's the platform they are using, and there's no acknowledgement that it's a commercial platform.
To a certain extent, I'd like to turn back that process and stop commercializing the school, because the school is a place where children should be able to gather and learn with privacy in a non-commercialized environment.