They’re tracking your movements.
NYC public school students are crying ewww over a new digital hall pass scheme that allows nosy teachers to closely monitor how long their students are actually spending in the bathroom and hallways.
SmartPass, which has been rolled out to 167 schools, lets Big Brother educators know exactly how long the passholder has left a classroom, tallies their overall missed class time, and can be used to detect unauthorized socializing in the hallways during teaching time.
The company calls their brainchild “empowering” — allowing fewer class interruptions, for a start, as all pass requests are done via iPad. Students and advocates, however, call the toilet tracking tool dystopian.
“How would that even work?” Union Square Academy for Health Sciences senior Nairobi H., 17, asked The Post. Upon learning that the SmartPass tracks the time, she suggested it was inherently invasive and could easily have a negative impact on students’ behavior.
“I would be uncomfortable because then I would have to rush doing what I’m doing. And that wouldn’t feel nice,” said Nairobi, who already uses cards when she goes to the bathroom and didn’t see a functional difference between the SmartPass and her card.
Public records showed that the city education department spent $368,000 on SmartPass contracts in 2025, and $120,000 the year before. Based on the number of schools currently using it, the cost is roughly $2,200 per school.
This spending comes as the city’s Independent Budget Office said the city needs to shave $535m to close budget gaps.
“It’s just creepy,” Johanna Miller, director of education policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union, told Gothamist, adding that SmartPass will “inevitably turn a student into a product and turn a student’s behavior into a long-term record that is exploitable, hackable, and can be used against the kids.”
The education department is claiming that the pricey technology has been vetted to make sure students’ data is protected.
“NYC Public Schools takes student privacy seriously, and we follow all city, state, and federal privacy regulations. All approved tools meet strict privacy and security standards,” education department spokesperson Onika Richards told The Post. “No school is required to adopt this tool, and supervisory discretion at the school level allows for individual locations to choose to procure and implement approved software that meets their needs. We take all public and student feedback seriously and believe in trust and transparency across our schools.”
But that doesn’t necessarily calm nerves, said Nairobi, who pointed out that the Big Brother aspect would haunt anyone, anywhere, whether in school or in public.
“Like, if you were walking down the street and you knew that somebody was watching you, like, following wherever you go?” she told The Post. “I feel like most people just would feel uncomfortable about the idea of that.”
”It’s taken micromanaging students to a whole other level,” Shokhjakhon Samiev, an 18-year-old high school senior, told Gothamist. “We’re here to educate ourselves, not learn how to use the bathroom, right?”
He added that his Brooklyn public high school brought in SmartPass last fall, and now students have to sign out on an iPad by the classroom door, which will time how long they’re out of the classroom.
In testimonials on the company’s website, school professionals tout the safety aspect.
“Without SmartPass, there wouldn’t be a way to know which learners are in the hallway—critical when there’s a building emergency,” James Hunt, assistant principal at a Missouri public school, wrote.
But in reality, it’s not as seamless as it’s cracked out to be.
Samiev told Gothamist that some loopholes can create messy situations. For example, a student can sign out under a classmate’s name, and then that student won’t be able to go to the bathroom because another student signed out as them.
Students have also left reviews in the Apple App Store complaining about the use of SmartPass in their schools, with one saying that it makes their life “SO much harder” and that it’s “a flawed system.”
“I wanted to use the bathroom during class one time, and I noticed I couldn’t because SmartPass puts locks on it,” one wrote. “I knew if I didn’t use the bathroom, I was going to pee myself. So I ended up just running out of the class and I got in trouble for it.”
A student also noted that teachers can put a time limit on how long they can be in the bathroom.
“The teachers can put timers on how long you can be in the bathroom for, ” they wrote. “I was [given] 30 seconds by one teacher.”
Even with all the spending on the system, it appears students and teachers are still resorting to the classic technique of raising hands for permission and using old-fashioned hall passes.
“Schools are spending thousands of dollars for this system, to buy iPads instead of hiring more teachers or [building] better facilities at our schools,” Samiev said.
