London, United Kingdom - Schoolchildren in the UK who search for words such as "caliphate" and the names of Muslim political activists on classroom computers risk being flagged as potential supporters of terrorism by monitoring software being marketed to teachers to help them spot students at risk of radicalisation.
The "radicalisation keywords" library has been developed by the software company Impero as an add-on to its existing Education Pro digital classroom management tool to help schools comply with new duties requiring them to monitor children for "extremism", as part of the government's Prevent counterterrorism strategy.
According to Impero about 40 percent of schools in the UK already use Education Pro, although a pilot version of the radicalisation library has so far only been rolled out in a few schools.
The keywords list, which was developed in collaboration with the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism organisation that is closely aligned with the government, consists of more than 1,000 trigger terms including "apostate", "jihadi" and "Islamism", and accompanying definitions.
Phrases specifically associated with online propaganda produced by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) such as YODO (You Only Die Once) and Message to America are also included, as well as some associated with far-right doctrine. It also includes the names of groups and individuals defined as "terrorists or extremists".
Education Pro enables teachers to monitor students' online activity and sends them "violation" alerts when a trigger term appears on a screen.
In one example cited by Impero during a promotional event last week in London, a student typing "caliphate" into a search engine would trigger an alert to be sent to a teacher telling them the word "in conjunction with other terms may indicate support for terrorism".
Teachers can also save screenshots or video of a student's screen which, Impero suggests, could provide "key evidence" to be shared with Channel, the government's counter-radicalisation programme for young people. The software also features a "confide" function, allowing students to report concerns about classmates anonymously.
But opponents of Prevent, who say it discriminates against Muslims, warned the software risked alienating Muslim communities and criminalising and stigmatising children.



