With more and more students and teachers using artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the classroom, sensitive personal data is at risk.
Teachers and pupils are getting ready to go back to school, and while the issue of staff shortages is an ongoing problem, this year there’s another possible threat in the classrooms: AI. The Swiss Teachers’ Association is now calling for a set of rules about AI and sensitive data, Swiss public television, SRF, reported on Monday.
The advent of tools such as OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT in Switzerland has led professionals, including teachers, to take advantage of the new technology’s functionalities. But teachers often have to deal with extremely sensitive data, for example writing reports about their students, with private information on their lives, including if they have a learning disability.
“There are no clear instructions to teachers as to what they can and cannot do,” Beat Schwendimann, member of the teachers' association management board, told SRF. He suggested that teachers be trained to learn how to deal with sensitive data online and how to avoid information being leaked.
Schwendimann explained that, as employers of teachers, it is up to the Swiss government and the cantons to draw up ethical guidelines for dealing with artificial intelligence that apply throughout Switzerland.
The world of AI is still very much unknown, especially when it comes to how some tools and apps store data. Therefore, EducaExternal link, a specialist agency commissioned by the government and cantons, recommended caution. “I suggest that teachers do not enter any personal data in these applications,” said Educa director Tony Ritz.
On top of this, last week the teachers' association president Dagmar Rösler criticised the cantons for not doing enough about the ongoing issue of teachers’ shortage. She explained how the quality of education in Switzerland was at risk, so the umbrella association launched an "Action Plan for Educational Quality" in a campaign starting in the autumn.