School computers tend to be loaded with a bunch of software designed to restrict student use so that the computers are only used for educational purposes, and also filters that prevent students from browsing things that they shouldn’t be browsing. GoGuardian is a company that develops and supplies schools with such software, and now they have a new tool.
The company has recently launched a new piece of software dubbed Beacon which has been designed as a suicide risk detector. This piece of software uses AI to understand what students have been browsing and can even detect when something might be amiss, after which they will then alert the school psychologist to let them know that the student has been flagged.
The psychologist or school counselor can then open the software to see the student that was flagged, and also see what they might have done to trigger the alert. For example sometimes it could be a false positive, such as for research purposes, but we suppose that would be up to the psychologist or counselor to make the judgement call.
Flags will range from being general suicide research, general suicide ideation, help and support, self harm, and active planning, such as students who might be researching how to tie a noose. GoGuardian claims that the system has been in testing for about a year and claim to see about 2,000 flags a week, and have managed to get staff members of the school and parents to intervene in time.