Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye.

Well, my, road to tech policy is a little bit of an unusual one. Actually, tech policy is, a little bit of a second career for me. And so, I found my way, into it in around 2017. I was working a lot on a a mix of tech issues that included, broadband, tech, media diversity, you know, AI. I did get to work on a variety of things that touched the FCC and FTC. And in my current role at, Next Century Cities, where I'm the executive director, I focus a lot on not only making sure that, every single resident in every community has access to high speed technology, but I am also, always concerned about what are we doing to think about, is it a safe ecosystem once they get there? And so that's where my privacy work, regularly intersects with CBT. Our privacy work is lesser known, so people don't always realize that that's actually part of our portfolio. But we definitely think of it as being, part and parcel of, you know, with us trying to make sure that everyone is able to get online. We wanna make sure that they're able to, protect their digital rights once they get there.

Well, one of the things that I always, wanna make sure that people are aware of is that the homework gap should not be coupled with the pandemic. It was a problem before the pandemic. It will remain a problem after the pandemic. So we do ourselves a little bit of a disservice if we give the impression that as the pandemic eases, it gets a little bit easier for the students who were having trouble getting online. Because quite frankly, even if you had a one year or a two year program where you got a free laptop or maybe, your family was able to get a broadband subscription and, you know, maybe you only had to get the device, The problem is that those students, very often live in households that are still gonna be struggling even as the economy starts to work back and people start going back to in person learning. And especially considering the reality that most schools will still have some sort of a hybrid model, It's really important to think about the fact that it's not just about them being able to do, you know, the nine to five learning that happens in the schoolhouse, but that they need to be able to get connected when they leave. So when we talk about the homework gap, you know, this is at least, well, it was actually around at the beginning of the pandemic around 18,000,000 students, and and some estimates, are a little bit lower and say that it's around 12,000,000 students now. But when we think about, you know, who are these students, which households, you know, what do their households look like? What's the demographic makeup? You know, what do they share in common? The things that most of them share in common is poverty, and that is something that is not going away with the pandemic. So when we talk about the homework gap, we really need to be talking about what are the long term solutions that we need to have in place to make sure that the students that were struggling before COVID are able to still have opportunities after.

Right. Right. And I think that, I think one of the things that surprised me even when we talked to, you know, whether it's local officials or even talking to community leaders, I think people were just surprised that it was in their neighborhood. I think there's always this assumption that, you know, for people who are connected, you know, even right now as I I talk to you, I have an iPad on my desk. I have my phone. I have my laptop, and I have my backup, I have a backup laptop. I have lots of ways to get online. But when I think about some of the people in the most poverty stricken households, they might only have one or two choices. Sometimes it's a cell phone with data caps. Sometimes it's a laptop that they have to share. So it's you know, I think we get so used to having things in abundance that it doesn't even occur to us that when people are really struggling with connectivity, it affects every single part of their day.

you know, whether you're the person who's deciding on the actual policy on how it's gonna happen, or you're the person who's actually working on implementation and maybe setting up students with devices, walking them through through training programs. I think it's important for everybody to consider if you were sitting in in the, you know, looking through the eyes of the person who's disconnected, very often these are gonna be students, sometimes, whether they're older students or younger students, this might be their first experience with their device with having reliable connectivity. So the thing is when we talk about, you know, navigating privacy protocols, I do remember I was in a conversation with, a representative from a company who said, you know, we've really gone through all of these extraordinary lengths to, you know, incorporate these settings and do these things. And I'm like, you know, for people who speak digital as their first language, it's hard for them to navigate all of those protections. So imagine if it's your first time setting up an email account. Imagine if it's your first time being able to log in to a platform that's just your login. You don't have to share it with someone else. I think that we need to think about what does it look like for the people who are new to the digital ecosystem. And we need to be able to speak in their language. We need to be able to meet them where they are. We need to be able to not only tell them about what privacy, safeguards are in place, but have that conversation over and over and over again in different ways, not only with the student who might be the the the primary user, but also the the parents, the custodian, the other family members that support that usage.

You know, I think that when we think about, you know, access to technology, as much as my position is always that we need to make sure that everyone has the option of being able to participate in a digital society. For all of the good that comes with that, we also know that technology is used as a tool of surveillance. And so when we accept that, I think I I wasn't surprised at the fact that, you know, monitoring software is used on students much like it's actually used on workers and other people in other context. But what troubles me about it is it's often something that starts with good intentions and then something turns awry. Maybe you started with the idea that we wanna be able to measure productivity on this platform. How many students are logging in, in the morning, you know, on time for their first class? How many students are completing their entire day? You might start with something that's a really harmless statistic. When it crosses the line is how are we using that information after you got what you originally intended? How are you storing that information and sharing it? Does it become something that could be monetized? Is it something that's actually used to target which students they're gonna target with either ads or promotions? So it it's very often something that really starts with very good intentions that ends up transitioning into something that there's a lot more blurry lines and ethical questions. And I think that because of the, mysterious nature of how data is collected, used, shared, sold, I think that there's always a reason for people to pause and ask, do we need this information? Who's going to be safeguarding it? Who's responsible when there's something that's a breach? Because very often, the people who are the most desperately impacted by when it goes wrong are also the same people who have the least amount of resources for remedies.

Well, I'm gonna answer that question in two parts to the first part of your question about the fact that, very often the the students who are under the most surveillance are gonna be the ones that are in the the high poverty areas. The reality is those are the students that are using devices that are either on loan, that are distributed through programs. Those are the students that are most likely to have it. You know, I I think just a baseline principle, the more resources they have you have, the more privacy you have. Right? So the thing is it's like, I don't have to rely on, a device issued by school. I can, you know, have my own device. I can, make sure that I have software that detects if someone's trying to watch, to use my camera, to pick up, my, my conversations. There's lots of options that I have when you have resources. When you are at the mercy of whether it's a school district or, you know, maybe you're you're involved in a loaner program, you are limited by whatever, disclaimers, you know, rules came that came with that program. There is no room for negotiation. So naturally, those are the students that are most likely going to be subject to some sort of tracking, monitoring, and, in some cases, surveillance. When I I really do think about, you know, the the fact that it being most desperately impact it most desperately impacting low high poverty students is not I mean, it's not unique to technology. That's something that happens in lots of different programs. So I don't wanna give the impression that this is something that is, that is new to this space. But I think that very often the people who are creating some of these programs and really reviewing, like, what exactly do people have to agree to, very often are also in positions of privilege where they wouldn't necessarily have to agree to those things. Yes. So you have to really, you know, want to ask questions whether you're the the school administrator who's brokering that deal, the local official who's asking a provider to come into a certain district to help. You know, there are lots of different people that really have to stand in the gap and ask questions. And sometimes that means we need to press pause to be able to read the fine print a little bit more carefully. Sometimes that means that we need to empower the people who are negotiating to actually give them information to say these are the questions that you need to ask before entering into agreements, and here are the things that you need to ask in an ongoing way just to make sure that we're actually holding people accountable. And then finally, you know, when we're thinking about how do we avoid this, I think we also have to ask question larger questions about, you know, how do we address digital poverty? I I mean, if that's an unavoidable existential question that we're gonna be faced with, Because it's the same people who are struggling with access to, you know, food security, housing insecurity, like, those are the same people who are also struggling with access to technology. So as long as we are sidelining the poor, not centering them in the conversation, not really being thoughtful about do our policies and our funding programs address their needs in a long term way, then we're gonna constantly be grappling with this issue. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw a curveball in here a little bit, and I just wanna I wanna ask in your opinion, is there any any perfect answer to address all of these issues? I I don't think that it's it's just my opinion. I don't think there is a perfect answer, and I think that we are misguided in, chasing after perfection. I think that, you know, the idea that we're gonna be able to to nail it on the first try on any of these policies is just unrealistic. And I don't necessarily you know, when we think about, like, the diaspora of people that we're trying to serve, we are trying to reach people in, places that are urban areas, rural areas, tribal communities, people that are not only in low income households by, federal poverty standards, but also the working poor, the ones who don't actually qualify for certain programs but are barely able to feed their families. Like, there are so many nuances to who, you know, actually needs help that I don't think that we should be searching for perfection. I think what we should be searching for is are we treating people in the way that we want people to treat the children in our own home? If you had a parent who was going back to school, if you were the person who was actually using, a device that actually had monitoring, apps on it. I think we need to start with just really central principles about are we treating people the way that we would want our loved ones to be treated. And in and in that vein, you know,

Well, I think as a baseline principle, we need to start with a premise, something that I hinted at earlier, is the fact that digital may not be their first language. I wanna point that out because I think all the time about the fact that there is definitely, an assumption that everyone inherited some sort of digital, understanding. How to use certain apps? Where do I go to actually change my privacy settings? Who do I ask in my home? There's an assumption that that is actually in your household. So when some of these students who might be in programs that they might be getting maybe laptops for the first time or maybe, unlimited service for the first time, they might not have anyone to ask for help in their households, and they might be limited in who they can ask for help at school. So we do need to make sure that we're speaking in terms that, lots of people understand. Then we also need to engage in an ongoing conversation that includes whether it's reminders, case studies, training to upskill. So even if we start with, here's the baseline principles that you need to to get online for the first few times, here's, you know, where we revisit that three months later or a year later. And I understand that, you know, some some school districts just quite frankly are not gonna have the resources to be able to do so in a formal way. But I do wanna just, you know, offer the the reminder that sometimes this is just about making sure that people feel comfortable with the language and can practice the language over and over again. So the thing is it might not be a formal training process. It might be that it's part of the actual, curriculum or that we're thinking about every single time that you open up your laptop, we're doing reminders, maybe first Fridays, just to make sure that we're mixing that into the conversation. I also think another thing that's important is to make sure that we're involving people that go beyond the student. There are lots of students whether it's their, whether they have parents at home, other custodians, aunts, uncles, whomever they live with. I think it's important to make sure that there are options for their support networks to be able to be involved in that conversation. Because quite frankly, a 12 year old should not be expected to be able to navigate this safely. Every single time, they should have places to be able to go to ask questions, and every single one of those students deserves to be able to have, digital in intelligence in their household, and that might mean involving their family members to get training as well. So your organization,

I think that in general, it's it's always important, just a matter of being on the record, important to, hold government accountable, push them to do the right thing, push them to, you know, really take action on issues that need to be revisited and just for us to really think through, is it working as it was originally intended? So I think that, if I thought about one part that was important, because the whole thing was important, but if I thought about one part, it would probably be towards the old. It was one of the final bullet points that I remember when I first read it, kind of stuck with me, and it was talking specifically about when we do systemic monitoring of people, and it really affects, how, getting information about students, their personal lives, their free expression, their ability to organize and and discussing sensitive issues. And I remember when I first read that, all I was thinking was, could you imagine if, you know, you have a student that has maybe a a a laptop that's a borrowed laptop that still has maybe their camera on or their their microphone on, and they take it with them to maybe their therapy session. Or maybe they get into the car after school and they ask their parent about, their custodial arrangement or, you know, something really personal if they're talking to their friends about relationships. Like, I just think, you know, sometimes you miss the days where it was just, like, you pass notes and you put a note in your locker and you just pray nobody found it on paper. But it's really scary that some of the things that end up in the digital ecosystem will exist there for perpetuity. And that that information could be used to, shape, impact, harm, dissuade students from being able to either ask hard questions or engage in difficult conversations or to just be authentic. And I think, you know, when we think about that, this idea that the conversations that you had at, you know, twelve, thirteen, 14, oh my gosh. I'm gonna let that in a digital ecosystem in perpetuity. So it's really scary to think that someone could, under any circumstance, be monitoring that or, using that to even monetize some of that information, it's just unfair. And I think that that's something that really sticks with me and part of the reason why we not only think it's it's not just congress's responsibility to get involved, but we've actually, you know, as next century cities also called on the FTC to really take action on, you know, creating a privacy framework.

Jamal, don't threaten me with a good time. I'm so grateful so thankful for the work that you guys are doing, and Century Cities is is always excited to be supportive of that. Thank you again for being here. And for our listeners, if you'd like to find out more about Next Century Cities,

thank you so much for joining us here today. Good morning, Jamal. It's nice to oh my gosh. I forgot. I'm not supposed to say good morning.