Effective digital monitoring offers schools the dual benefit of improving digital safeguarding standards while reducing workloads for DSL and IT teams. However, a digital monitoring strategy that is unsuitable for your setting can leave staff dealing with waves of false positives - undermining the value of having such systems in place.
Schools, colleges and MATs with multiple devices in use can’t afford to have their DSLs wading through false alarms to identify genuine safeguarding alerts. This article covers 3 steps organisations can take to significantly reduce false positives and establish efficient and effective digital monitoring.
What are false positives?
Digital monitoring acts as a virtual assistant for busy DSLs, identifying at-risk students who may otherwise go unnoticed, based on what they do, say, or share on digital devices. When potential safeguarding risks or incidents are identified, an alert is sent to the school - often in the form of an email, text, phone call or notification on a dashboard.
False positives occur when alerts are generated for harmless activity that requires no intervention. For example, if a student types “I want to cut my hair”, some monitoring solutions may send an alert because the word “cut” is detected.
Rudimentary digital monitoring systems can produce huge numbers of false positives, creating an administrative burden for the DSLs and IT staff who have to sift through them. This puts students at increased risk, as real incidents could be developing while staff are hampered with the task of removing unnecessary alerts.
How to reduce false positives on your digital monitoring system
1. Utilise technology that risk assesses the whole screen for context
Digital monitoring can take two main forms: managed and unmanaged. Unmanaged systems trigger alerts to a dashboard when certain keywords are detected in what a student types or views on a digital device. Example keywords include “kill”, “bomb”, or “hurt”, and any time they are identified, an alert will be generated and sent to the DSL for them to investigate.
This approach does not take context into account - a key factor which can reveal the difference between a safeguarding incident and a harmless act. For example, a student could be typing “How many bombs were dropped in World War 2?” or “Best way to kill time between classes?”. Both cases would prompt an unmanaged digital monitoring system to produce an alert. In schools with multiple devices in use, this can quickly result in large numbers of false positives.
In contrast, managed digital monitoring systems utilise technology that can investigate beyond simple keywords. If a potentially harmful word or phrase is flagged, the software will assess the whole screen to identify any risks.
By exploring evidence in the form of image captures and keystrokes, these systems use crucial contextual information to achieve more accurate assessments. Potential incidents can then either be discarded as a false positive (it is estimated that managed systems remove 99% of false positives this way), or categorised according to level of risk and sent to DSLs with the supporting contextual evidence - enabling staff to make an informed decision on how to respond.
2. Regularly assess your digital monitoring provision(s)
As technology evolves, so too do the digital safeguarding requirements of schools, colleges and MATs. This is why the Department for Education instructs schools to review monitoring systems “at least annually” to ensure that they are still effectively identifying vulnerable pupils and protecting school networks.
Regularly assessing monitoring systems can help schools to uncover issues that could lead to increased false positives before they become a burden to staff. Similarly, dealing with high numbers of false positives can be a sign that a digital monitoring system needs to be reviewed.
Reviews should be conducted by members of the senior leadership team, DSLs and IT service providers, with oversight and support provided by the relevant governor.
What constitutes an appropriate level of digital monitoring?
The main forms of monitoring that can be considered “appropriate”, depending on the setting, are:
- Physical monitoring: Staff physically monitor device use by watching screens
- Internet and web access: Staff examine complex logfile information produced by internet service providers or web filters to identify potential risks
- Active monitoring: Staff search through alerts produced by an unmanaged digital monitoring system that relies on basic information like keywords
- Proactive monitoring: Staff respond to alerts that have been categorised according to risk level by advanced software and human moderators
In scenarios where DSLs are time poor and many devices are in use, only proactive monitoring has the ability to significantly minimise false positives.
3. Harness the power of human moderation
The most effective digital monitoring systems add another vital stage to the incident assessment process: human moderation. Smoothwall Monitor, for example, uses advanced technology to assess and categorise events according to their perceived threat level. Low level risks are stored in a convenient dashboard, while medium and high level risks are sent to a team of UK-based human moderators to assess in real time.
These highly-trained moderators possess an expert eye that cannot be replicated by any technology. For example, when a class of students is completing a module on narcotics, they may need to conduct multiple searches on controversial topics including drug ingredients, their effects, addiction and overdoses. A moderator would inspect the contextual information surrounding such activities, quickly recognise that they were being performed for educational purposes, and therefore not alert the DSL.
The crucial input of human moderators ensures that false positives are minimised and schools are only contacted when absolutely necessary. This enables DSLs to spend their time focusing on cases that genuinely require intervention. This level of efficiency can have a significant positive impact on staff workloads - empowering them to maintain a vigilant stance on digital incidents and address issues before they develop into serious problems.
Enhance digital safety and reduce workloads with Smoothwall Monitor
Smoothwall Monitor is a real-time, human-moderated digital monitoring system that empowers DSLs to perform their roles effectively and efficiently.
Our UK-based team of human moderators:
- Undergo an extensive in-house training process
- Keep false positives to a minimum
- Maintain an up-to-date threat library by immediately adding new trends
- Ensure all data stays within the UK
- Receive regular support to protect their wellbeing
By monitoring both online and offline digital activity, Smoothwall Monitor offers a high level of protection for students and enables schools to demonstrate that they have appropriate digital monitoring in place, as outlined by statutory guidance.
