In this essay, Bryan R. Warnick responds to the increasing use of surveillance cameras in public schools by examining the ethical questions raised by their use. He explores the extent of a student’s right to privacy in schools, stipulates how video surveillance is similar to and different from commonly accepted in-person surveillance practices, and discusses the possible impact of surveillance technology on educational environments. In response to the ethical concerns he raises, Warnick offers five suggestions for how schools can use video surveillance technology in more ethically sensitive ways.

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Bryan R. Warnick is an assistant professor of education in the School of Educational Policy and Leadership at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on the philosophy of education, the ethics of educational policy and practice, American educational thought, and educational technology. Warnick’s recent publications include “Ethics and Education Forty Years Later” in Educational Theory (2007); “Philosophical Inquiry,” coauthored with N. C. Burbules, in the Handbook of Complementary Methods in Education Research, 3rd Edition (2006); and a review of S. Benardete’s Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero in The Journal of Aesthetic Education (2006).