Theres not a lot of transparency about school cybersecurity incidents because theres not an affirmative reporting requirement for schools, Laird said. But in instances where parents are notified of breaches, they are more concerned than other parents about student privacy. Parents and students have also grown increasingly wary of another set of education tools that rely on artificial intelligence: digital surveillance technology. Among them are student activity monitoring tools, such as those offered by the for$-$profit companies Gaggle and GoGuardian, which rely on algorithms in an effort to keep students safe. The surveillance software employs artificial intelligence to sift through students online activities and flag school administrators and sometimes the police when they discover materials related to sex, drugs, violence or self$-$harm. Among parents surveyed this year, $55\%$ said they believe the benefits of activity monitoring outweigh the potential harms, down from $63\%$ last year. Among students, $52\%$ said theyre comfortable with academic activity monitoring, a decline from $63\%$ last year. Such digital surveillance, researchers found, frequently has disparate impacts on students based on their race, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, potentially violating longstanding federal civil rights laws.