The Evolution of School Monitoring: The Critical Role of Human Oversight

In today’s digital landscape, schools are increasingly adopting systems to gain a deeper and real-time understanding of how students use devices and interact online to better keep students safe. This category of solutions is commonly known as Digital Monitoring. While AI-driven tools have revolutionised this category, strengthening the level of digital safety provided by schools, human monitoring is emerging as a critical component in ensuring these solutions are both effective and ethical.

Why Schools in Australia Are Turning to Monitoring Solutions

Globally, schools have been relying on digital monitoring as a key capability to provide a high standard of safeguarding and care. Countries like the UK have specific regulations, such as Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE), which guide and mandate school safeguarding standards. With the rise of online risks such as cyberbullying, self-harm, and exposure to inappropriate content in Australia, local schools are facing increasing pressure to expand their provision and consider digital monitoring systems. These tools help detect concerning behaviour and digital risks, providing an opportunity for early intervention.

At the same time, it’s crucial to distinguish between purposeful monitoring for student safety and invasive surveillance akin to spyware. Some monitoring solutions operate in a way that can feel intrusive, leading to concerns about student privacy and autonomy. Ethical school monitoring must be transparent, targeted, and aligned with safeguarding responsibilities, rather than being perceived as covert surveillance.

While AI-driven solutions can detect risks, they require human oversight to ensure alerts are interpreted correctly and appropriate action is taken.

The Role of Human Moderation in Monitoring for Digital Safety

AI-powered monitoring tools can scan and flag potential risks in student behaviour, but they often lack context. Models and algorithms continue to be refined to reduce false positives, but a human element remains essential. This is where human oversight comes in. Trained specialists can review alerts, assess intent, and determine the actual severity of the alert. Here’s why this approach is gaining traction:

1. Providing Contextual Understanding

AI can detect keywords or behaviour patterns that may indicate distress, but it lacks the ability to understand context. For example:

• A student researching ‘self-harm’ may be looking for help rather than engaging in risky behaviour.
• A flagged search for ‘weapons’ might be for a history assignment rather than something concerning.
• With human oversight, these nuances are considered, reducing false positives and ensuring responses are proportionate.

2. Supporting Schools in Making Digital Safeguarding Decisions

While AI can identify risk factors, it cannot replace human judgment in safeguarding decisions. Schools already focus on physical behaviours and risks that they can observe, but digital risks often remain unseen. Technology and human moderators can work together to monitor these digital cues, ensuring that safeguarding responsibilities extend beyond the physical world.

Schools don’t have to take on this responsibility alone, which is a key concern for many educators. What if something is missed? Human moderators coupled with AI dramatically reduce the likelihood of a critical issue going undetected.

3. Addressing Ethical & Privacy Concerns

Privacy remains a major concern for schools, students, and parents. Without human oversight, monitoring solutions risk over-surveillance or unnecessary escalation. Trained reviewers help ensure that only relevant cases are flagged, protecting student privacy while maintaining safety.

This is particularly important given legal obligations under Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 and state-specific surveillance legislation, such as the Surveillance Devices Act 2004. Schools must ensure that any monitoring aligns with legal principles of necessity, proportionality, and transparency to avoid infringing on student rights.

4. Streamlining Escalation & Reducing Alert Fatigue

School IT staff and safeguarding teams often receive overwhelming volumes of alerts from automated monitoring systems. Without proper filtering, important cases may be lost in the noise. Human-moderated services prioritise alerts, ensuring that school leaders and wellbeing teams only receive critical cases that require action.

5. Building Trust with Schools & Families

One of the biggest concerns around digital monitoring is trust—both from educators and parents. When human oversight is in place, schools can provide greater assurance that monitoring is being conducted responsibly and ethically. Communicating how alerts are reviewed, who has access to data, and how decisions are made fosters transparency and confidence in the system.

Why Schools Are More Open to This Model Now

Historically, schools have been hesitant to adopt monitoring solutions due to privacy concerns, the risk of false alarms, and uncertainty about how to manage alerts. However, several factors are driving a shift towards a hybrid approach that combines AI with human expertise:

• False alarms from AI-only solutions have led to unnecessary escalations, prompting schools to seek more balanced approaches.
• High-profile incidents have increased the demand for proactive safeguarding, making real-time human assessment more crucial.
• Schools are becoming more aware of legal risks related to monitoring, and human oversight ensures compliance with privacy laws, surveillance regulations, and duty of care obligations.

Final Thoughts: A Balanced Approach to Digital Safety

For monitoring solutions to be truly effective, they must strike a balance between technology and human judgment. AI provides speed and efficiency, but human oversight ensures fairness, privacy, and appropriate intervention. Schools that integrate human-moderated services can better protect students while fostering trust and responsible monitoring practices.

By ensuring that monitoring remains ethical, legal, and student-focused, schools can create safer digital environments without compromising trust, privacy, or wellbeing. The most successful solutions will be those that put both technology and people at the heart of student safety.

How Linewize Can Help

Our Monitor solution and our team of human moderators are identifying real issues that require urgent attention every minute of every day. In 2024, we helped schools around the world:

• Spot a child at suspected serious risk - every 52 seconds
• Find a child suspected to be involved in a very serious cyberbullying, bullying, or violent event, including a risk to their health or life – every 4 hours
• Find a child suspected to be involved in a potentially violent incident, including a risk to health or life – every 5 hours.

Linewize Monitor is the most advanced K-12 pastoral reporting and alerting platform available globally. It goes beyond web searches, identifying negative behaviours across everything typed on school devices.

With AI-powered insights and human oversight, safeguarding teams gain vital context to intervene early—before small issues escalate into serious wellbeing concerns.

To understand how Linewize can support your school’s digital safety and wellbeing strategy, learn more here.