York Region District School Board v. Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, 2024 SCC 22
Section 8 of the Charter, which states: “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”
(June 21, 2024) Supreme Court of Canada rules on privacy rights in schools
https://www.blg.com/en/insights/2024/06/supreme-court-of-canada-rules-on-privacy-rights-in-schools
On the advice of their union, two teachers maintained a password-protected log on Google Docs, via a personal Gmail account, where they recorded their concerns regarding another teacher. The principal entered one of their classrooms to return some teaching materials after classes had ended. The teacher was not present. The principal saw that her board-issued laptop was open and touched its mousepad. A document called “Log Google Docs” opened on the screen. The principal read what was visible on the screen and then scrolled through the document. He used his cellphone to take screenshots of the document. When the principal had finished taking photos, he shut down the laptop.
The principal informed his superintendent. The Board seized the teachers’ board-issued laptops, and gave the teachers written reprimands.
Key takeaways
- The Supreme Court confirmed that all activities of school boards are subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as they are governmental in nature. This includes the actions of its principals, when they are acting in their official capacity as agents of the board.
- Subject to board policies, school board employees may have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to content on their board-issued electronic devices, including laptops
Next steps for school boards
- School boards should consider reviewing their acceptable use of technology policies and their practices concerning the use of board-issued laptops. In light of the Supreme Court of Canada’s conclusion that the Charter applies to school boards, boards may also wish to consider their Code of Conduct policies and investigation procedures for students, including board-issued devices, lockers, and board property.
Consent
(Dec 2, 2022) Online proctoring biometrics fails to meet Canada’s legal threshold of consent: report
https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/practice-areas/privacy-and-data/online-proctoring-biometrics-fails-to-meet-canadas-legal-threshold-of-consent-report/372049
- Online proctoring biometrics for remote exams fails to meet Canada’s legal threshold of consent, privacy, and anti-discrimination, according to a new academic report from the University of Ottawa with the support of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
∞
Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (2010)
(April 8, 2025) The Unsettling True Story Behind the School Spying Scandal in Spy High
https://time.com/7275031/spy-high-true-story-prime-video/
- Software can flag words like “gay,” leading to students being forcibly outed, like Leo Holcomb in Minneapolis (he and his friend, Charlie Schmidt, helped get monitoring software banned in the state of Minnesota).
∞
(Apr 3, 2025) School Surveillance Systems Threaten Student Privacy, New Knight Institute Lawsuit Alleges
https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/school-surveillance-systems-threaten-student-privacy-new-knight-institute-lawsuit-alleges
Focusing on: Grapevine Colleyville Independent School District in Texas.
- It is estimated that millions of children—nearly half of K-12 students across the nation, according to a recent New York Times report—are subject to digital surveillance systems that can potentially monitor every word or phrase they type on school-issued laptops, tablets, and software.
- Given the widespread concerns about youth mental health, many people might view such digital surveillance as a godsend, a critical tool for combatting tragically high rates of youth suicide and depression, as well as school shootings. But that viewpoint likely rests on two assumptions: first, that the systems are as effective as the edtech industry claims, and second, that school districts are limiting the systems’ purview to content that relates to student safety.
- Despite the edtech industry’s claims that their artificial intelligence products have saved thousands of students’ lives, the Associated Press reports that no independent research has corroborated their efficacy.
- Digital surveillance endangers both the sanctity of their private communications and their freedom to access more accurate, complex, and engaging ideas than their schools might permit
(Mar 10, 2019) How a spy pen and a shocking court case show technology will always outpace the law
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/privacy-in-digital-age-1.5043758
- This story involves Ryan Jarvis, a teacher from London, Ont., who used hidden technology — a spy pen — to capture videos of his female students around the school.
- The majority of videos showed the students’ faces, upper bodies and breasts.
- Jarvis was charged with voyeurism under the Criminal Code and, after a protracted legal process that eventually took the case to the country’s highest court, he was found guilty in February.
- This [ruling] means our justice system now recognizes that an individual can accept surveillance or observation in one circumstance, but reject such observation or surveillance in another context.
- This Ontario case speaks directly to the ongoing need to reassess what it means to respect individual autonomy, under what circumstances consent to surveillance can be assumed as implicit and when explicit consent is demanded.
R. v. Jarvis https://www.scc-csc.ca/judgments-jugements/cb/2019/37833/
- Voyeurism became a crime in the Criminal Code in 2005.
- A teacher who recorded students with a hidden camera is guilty of voyeurism, the Supreme Court has ruled. Students doing normal activities at school don’t give up their privacy rights even though technology makes it easier to record them.
- To determine when someone should be reasonably able to expect privacy, the majority said courts need to look at the entire situation…
- Technology has made it much easier to get, store, and share information about others. But the majority said that doesn’t mean people have to give up their right to privacy just because there is a risk it can be violated. Technology may make it easier to violate someone’s privacy, but that doesn’t mean a person should have to accept it.
[68] The development of new recording technology, and its increasing availability on the retail market, may mean that individuals come to fear that they are being recorded by hidden cameras in situations where such recording was previously impossible; however, it does not follow that individuals thereby waive expectations of privacy in relation to such recording or that retaining such an expectation becomes unreasonable: see Tessling, at para. 42. Indeed, to accept such an approach would make the “reasonable expectation of privacy” a “meaningless standard” and would undermine Parliament’s very purpose in enacting s. 162(1): see Wong, at p. 45. [SSC]