Data collection from Microsoft Teams wasn’t turned off.

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STUDENT TRACKING

Biometric data was collected from school students using Microsoft Teams for weeks before the NSW Department of Education became aware of the issue, it has been revealed.

Microsoft began enabling a new feature that allowed voice and facial data enrolment for users entering Teams meetings from mid-March.

The feature was enabled in public schools across the state around that time, until the education department was alerted and switched off the feature in early April.

A NSW Department of Education spokesperson said the collected data has since been removed.

“The Department of Education does not collect student biometric data,” a NSW Department of Education spokesperson said.

“A new Microsoft Teams feature that allowed voice and facial enrolment for people entering Teams meetings was quickly disabled across our network, and any face or voice recognition profiles that were created have been removed.”

Shadow Education Minister, Sarah Mitchell, said the situation was a “complete breach of privacy and trust for every student and parent” across the state.

“Not only do we not know how long the data was held, but we also have not been told what the data was used for while it existed,” she said.

“What’s even more concerning is the fact that it appears there are parents out there who are not even aware this occurred — and that is simply not good enough.”

Education Minister, Prue Carr, has requested a “full briefing” of the incident from the education department.

“We want to assure parents and students that the function is now disabled and that no biometric data was held by the Department,” a spokesperson for Carr said.

Microsoft assured students and parents that no one has access to the biometric data.

“No one, including Microsoft, has access to individual users’ biometric data — it’s encrypted and stored securely per our compliance and privacy standards,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

What an absolute blunder here by the NSW Department of Education.

Whether by accident, on intentional until they got caught, this isn’t the first time privacy concerns have entered classrooms — so why should we trust anything they say?

There is a long track record of students being tracked and traced right across Australia, and in 2025, there is very little way parents can know if their children — and their personal information — is safe.

BIOMETRIC DYSTOPIA

As technology completely takes over classrooms these days, individuals should be rightly concerned over just what information is being collected, and who this is being shared with.

In 2017, we first reported that children as young as five would have their fingerprints scanned at school as part of a controversial new biometric student attendance record-keeping program being introduced in South Australia.

The system, an adaptation of previous programs that were suspended by the government due to privacy concerns, allowed students at to register they are at school by placing their finger on a pad.

Australian school introduces biometric identification

Speaking of fingerprinting, more recently in 2022, a Sydney high school made the decision to install fingerprint scanners at the entrance to toilets to ‘stop vandalism’.

Sydney high school installs fingerprint scanners in toilets

The controversial move was blasted by privacy experts as “unreasonable and disproportionate”.

If it’s not physical biometrics, it is student data that is being harvested by a number of groups.

One investigation revealed more than 4 million Australian school students were put at risk of unprecedented tracking and surveillance during COVID remote learning periods, as corporations exploited their access.

Millions of Australian school students tracked during lockdown remote learning

Human Rights Watch findings show that 89 per cent of the educational technology, or “EdTech” products, used on an international scale could put children’s privacy at risk.

This includes universities as well, where through the use of “proctoring platforms”, companies use a combination of ‘human monitoring and AI monitoring to keep an eye on student conduct’ during exams.

Online surveillance of university students grows

Not only do these platforms collect this “behavioural data”, but they are also attempting to morph the psychology and social structure of the students themselves.

One classroom application, for example, ranks students based on behaviours — allowing teachers to “automate the task of recording classroom conduct” by monitoring and storing data.

Classroom app ranks students on ‘set behaviours’

Many have suspected that constant and invasive expansion of this technology, along with the apps that promote and normalise this type of behaviour, are edging students closer towards a Western-style ‘Social Credit System’.

China’s ‘Social Credit System’ will soon reach Australia

This isn’t even including the cultural marxist indoctrination that is happening in schools right across Australia, either. A topic that is equally as concerning.

It is no wonder that more parents are choosing to keep their children outside of the education system these days, opting instead for home-based schooling to give them the best chance to avoid this nonsense.

The rise of home education in Australia

What are your thoughts on this Microsoft Teams/NSW Education revelation?

Do you think this was “accidental”, as they say?

Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section below!

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