GoGuardian

GoGuardian is an educational technology company founded in 2014 and based in Los Angeles, California. The company has five core products: GoGuardian Admin (web filtering), GoGuardian Teacher (classroom management), GoGuardian Fleet (Chrome device management), GoGuardian Beacon (suicide and self-harm alerting), and GoGuardian DNS (network management). These services monitor student activity online, filter content, and alert school officials to possible suicidal or self-harm ideation.
As of June 2018, GoGuardian reports its services are used in 10,150 schools for at least five million students. In 2018, Inc 500 named GoGuardian the fastest-growing education company.
Product history.
GoGuardian was founded in 2014 and is based in Los Angeles, CA. Its feature set includes Chromebook filtering, monitoring, and management, as well as usage analytics, activity flagging, and theft recovery for any device running the Chrome Operating System (Chrome OS). GoGuardian also offers filtering functionality for third-party tools such as YouTube. These services enable school administrators to monitor student activity online, filter potentially harmful or distracting content, and recover lost or stolen devices.
As of June 2015, GoGuardian reported it was active in over 1,600 of the estimated 15,000 school districts in the United States.
In January 2015, Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) chose GoGuardian to support their 1:1 device rollout program to 661,000 students. Chromebooks are one of the device options in LAUSD's 1:1 rollout. This partnership provides LAUSD with device tracking and grade-level-specific filtering capabilities, and facilitates compliance with the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA).
In September 2015, the company unveiled GoGuardian for Teachers. The tool is designed to help teachers manage Chromebook usage in their classrooms and monitor student activity on the device. The goal of the tool is to help keep students on-task and away from inappropriate content.
In January 2016, GoGuardian announced the launch of Google Classroom Integration for GoGuardian for Teachers.
In January 2016, two of the company's co-founders, Aza Steel and Advait Shinde, were named to "Forbes" magazine's annual "30 Under 30" list in the Education category.
In 2018 GoGuardian launched Beacon, a software system installed on school computers that analyzes students' browsing behavior to alert school counselors or psychologists of students at risk of suicide or self-harm.
In 2018 GoGuardian was acquired by private equity firm Sumeru Equity Partners and appointed Tony Miller to their board of directors.
Student privacy.
GoGuardian products allow teachers and administrators to view and snapshot students' computer screens, close and open browser tabs, and see running applications. GoGuardian can collect information about any activity when users are logged onto their accounts, including data originating from a student's webcam, microphone, keyboard, and screen, along with historical data such as browsing history. This collection can be performed whether students connect from school-provided or personally-owned devices. Some parents have raised privacy concerns over this data collection, stating that "This is essentially spyware."
In 2016, researcher Elana Zeide raised the concern that the use of GoGuardian software for suicide prevention, though "well-meaning", could result in "overreach". Zeide further noted that legitimate personal reasons could motivate a student to wish to search for sensitive information in private. According to Zeide, this concern is compounded by the fact that school devices may be the only devices for lower-income students. American School Counselor Association ethics chair Carolyn Stone raised the concern that GoGuardian's ability to track web searches conducted at home is "intrusive" and could be "conditioning children to accept constant monitoring" as normal.
In October 2015, GoGuardian software was able to track keystrokes and remotely activate student webcams. GoGuardian states that the features were removed as part of its "ongoing commitment to student privacy."
GoGuardian technical product manager Cody Rice stated in 2016 that schools had control over GoGuardian's collection and management of data, and that no client had complained about privacy.