This is a huge mess of an article. They talk about how student data should not be given out to corporations who profit from this data, parents not believing the government when they say that all data is kept on Canadian servers, concerns about Google’s role in providing Chromebooks to students, mentioning the existence of collaborative projects between Mila (original developers of this risk analysis project) and Google, criticisms of generative AI in art, and a bunch of other stuff. Most importantly, they don’t say anything about how any of this is supposed to be related to each other. So I get the impression that the conclusion they want the reader to draw from this is that the Quebec government is giving out student data to OpenAI or Google to process for them, but they can’t outright say that because there’s no evidence to support it.
I recently reached out to the Ontario Minister of Education and the Minister of Privacy to ask why there are tech positions in school boards when they mostly outsource to companies like Microsoft and Google instead of using OSS options. It’s a bit concerning, especially since my child is set to receive a Chromebook next year. I’m planning to decline that and instead provide them with a Linux notebook.
Paper is a edtech company that has a bunch of contracts with school boards for tutoring. They fired AFAIK all of their Canadian tutors last year, coincidentally after they had unionised in both Ontario and Québec. Not sure if they still are getting public funding but may be worth adding to your questions.
What do you respond to people claiming that The Rover is not a real journalist. I had this problem lately …
