Over two-thirds of schools installed special software on school computers to spy on their pupils, responses to Freedom of Information requests have revealed.

According to a report by Big Brother Watch, "classroom management software" is running on over 800,000 computers, laptops, and mobile phones found in 1,000 secondary schools across England and Wales. A whopping £2.5 million has been spent on the programs.

Classroom management software allows the screens of an entire class to be monitored from a teacher's desktop, and for both the historical and real-time Web activity of a pupil to be accessed. Keystrokes can be watched, and alerts created to flag up "inappropriate" words. More generally, the systems can try to spot "bad" behaviour online, including signs of "extremism and radicalisation."

The civil liberties group's report noted that schools may be installing the software due to government pressure to adhere to obligations under the anti-extremism Prevent strategy, or in response to the recently published Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance.

Classroom management software typically claims to address key concerns of schools. The report said:

The software is also marketed as a way schools can tackle the problems of cyber-bullying, sexting, self-harm, or as a way of identifying pupils who may be having suicidal thoughts. The words pupils type whilst using a device can be monitored and run against a 'keyword abuse library' to flag issues of concern.

Schools are advised to issue "acceptable use" policies that are signed by pupils or their parents to confirm they are happy for this form of computer surveillance to be carried out. However, Big Brother Watch says that only 15 percent of the 1,000 schools that responded to its FoI requests provided their acceptable use policy.

Of those 150 schools, only 10 percent of the acceptable use policies mentioned the software that was being used, and then, the privacy campaigners said, "in very basic terms, such as 'I know that the school can remotely monitor what I can do on the computers', or more intimidating language was used, with a couple of schools warning students that they are 'NOT invisible' or that they are 'being monitored'. This is not only inappropriate but in most cases the schools are failing to adhere to data protection law."

Data protection is likely to become even more of an issue for schools in the future given the European Union's incoming General Data Protection Regulation. As the report noted: "By May 2018 any organisation handling data must ensure they inform the individual exactly why their data is being gathered, used, shared, or monitored. Only then can the individual be sure to have given their informed consent to the use of their personal data."

Big Brother Watch is also concerned about the security of class management programs: "the safety of children isn’t solely about protecting them from searching for, viewing, or typing inappropriate words and images," it said. "It also involves ensuring that the personal information held about them and their education is properly secured."

The report also notes a more insidious danger the routine deployment of classroom spyware could engender: coupled with the use of CCTV and biometric systems, it argues that there's a risk that spying on children could be seen as normal behaviour.

Ars sought comment on the report from the department for education. "Schools have a responsibility to keep pupils safe, including online, and schools should use appropriate filters and monitoring systems to protect children from harmful material," a spokesperson said. "How individual schools decide to do this is rightly a matter for the school, engaging with pupils and parents as appropriate."