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Students’ smartphones are centerpiece in debate on privacy By Jerry Fingal
photos by k atrina tr ay lor rice
To learn about the Bill of Rights and the right to privacy, civics teacher Katrina Traylor Rice asks her students to go beyond reading primary-source documents. She actually has them take out their phones and check their privacy settings. Students quickly learn that some of their apps know exactly where they are and have access to their photo galleries and other personal data. What they may have thought was private isn’t. The exercise is all part of Rice’s effort to drive home the Bill of Rights to the 10th grade students in her Introduction to the Law and Speech Communication course at Jesse Bethel High School in Vallejo, California. “The amendments are really simple,” Rice said. “They’re actually really short. But really attacking them and understanding their implications is a much more in-depth process.”
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With the Fourth Amendment, which explicitly prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, Rice starts with the students watching “Citizenfour,” a documentary focused on Edward Snowden’s disclosures about a massive U.S. government surveillance program. The film poses questions about exchanging privacy for national security, and whether more security and less privacy actually makes the nation safer. “Those are questions I don’t have an answer to,” Rice says. “I don’t teach the unit with the secret answer in my head. It’s something that I, as an adult, grapple with. I’m not sure what the best answer is, and I understand both sides of the controversy.” From national security, Rice brings the issue into students’ lives through their phones. Students might be surprised by what personal data they’re
