GoGuardian
| Basic information | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2015 |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Education |
| Official website | https://www.goguardian.com/ |
GoGuardian Inc. is a software company that focuses on education. They offer a browser extension for Google Chrome called "GoGuardian Beacon" that has been known to spy on people, give teachers/admins full control to your computer, and prevent suicide.[citation needed] GoGuardian has caused a lot of controversy, as it accesses sensitive information.
Controversies
Student data collection concerns
According to a study, GoGuardian admins have access to "browsing histories, documents, videos, app and extension data, and content filtering and alerts."[1] This is an issue as students in school districts who utilize this software as a service (SAAS) are forced into using school devices with the monitoring software preinstalled, such as Chromebooks.
GoGuardian knows what they are doing because on their YouTube channel, they disabled comments on their videos. On some videos, they disabled like and dislike count but on others, the dislike percent is very high, usually 90-95%. (Data obtained from Return Youtube Dislike Extension)
Workarounds
There are a few workarounds, like going to task manager (Shift+Esc) and ending the GoGuardian process. Some schools have disabled ending processes as a result.
Another workaround is using your own laptop with a browser other than Google Chrome.