On Wednesday December 7th at Arrowhead students were assigned a homeroom that they were to go to so they could download the new Arrowhead Wifi that’s coming next semester. The new wifi is called “Securly” which is a web filter for Wifi that blocks students from certain websites on school wifi and keeps search history on it according to securly.com. The new web filter would also send weekly reports of students search history to their parents. The filter will be implemented by the school but the securly website says that it monitors your device even at home or away from school. Many students were skeptical about it invading privacy and one student even started a petition to get rid of the new wifi.

The petition was started by Arrowhead Junior Owen Harvey who said, “ Arrowhead’s new wifi system called Securely is blocking sites that many of us may use for educational purposes. This system scans social media posts and will be alerted for any posts relating drugs, profanity, cyber bullying, threats, and depression/suicide. The website also shows that most of the flaggings were from social media websites, which shows the new Wifi is scanning messages sent between people on social media, not just flagging websites.”

The petition was started just about a day after students were instructed to download it onto their devices. The petition states “This Wifi system is invading our privacy. The download that they had us get has also made computers crash and get viruses.” It was created on a site with the name petitionsite.org where people from around the globe can come to sign petitions created on the website. Only hours after the petition has started they almost have 1000 signees.

Arrowhead Senior Payton Sluss said, “students shouldn’t be forced to download something that has been said to hold viruses on it and track every move we make on the internet.”

Arrowhead Senior Aiden Kunz said, “There is a boundary that this site has crossed and being able to see others texts and other personal info isn’t right. If you look past seeing profanity and substances on posts and texts there are personal issues people may be going through that they don’t want other people knowing about, this isn’t right.”

Students have also made complaints that they aren’t able to access websites that are for educational use. Many of those sites being online forums such as reddit and 4chan. Also many students have also reported the file to be carrying viruses in it that could harm your computer.

Arrowhead Senior Zach Kocher said, “I just got a new laptop that cost me hundreds of dollars and they expect me to download a file, that may have viruses on it, so I can have access to the new wifi. This whole idea sounds ridiculous to me they should just leave it how it is right now.”

Seeing that over 1000 people have signed the petition, most of them being students that go to Arrowhead, a consensus shows that something should be done about this says, Arrowhead Junior Derek Luetke.

Arrowhead Senior Tyler Heineck said, “If nobody likes this new system especially the students and parents that are involved with this school shouldn’t they have a say in these decisions.”