The Hitching Post

Do you know anything about the 5 Star Students app? No? Well maybe that’s for the best. 

As is with the new school year, changes are made and policies are going through. So are the programs to keep students safe.

Or so they say. 

One program has caught the attention of students in certain school districts, raising concerns of tracking student’s locations and possible privacy violations. Which, for an app tailor made for students (minors) to use, is problematic. 

It’s one thing for an app to track someone’s location, specifically families. However, it’s another thing for a company to sell that data. Which, for the 5 Star Students app, might just be the case.

For those unaware, 5 Star Students is an app that does a few things. It works like a digital ID for students, and there’s a point system to unlock certain things like a currency system, like school activities or even school merchandise. 

This brings up the possibility and discussion of safety of students on campus, regarding potential spyware being promoted to kids. 

So, is the 5 Star Students app considered spyware? 

Well to understand this question, what is spyware?

Spyware, according to Fortinet, is a term to describe software made maliciously, used to gather data of the device and user and sell it to 3rd party companies without consent. 

Most companies that could or are considered spyware, aren’t going to advertise themselves as that. That’s redundant from a business standpoint.

Some say that if it was, it should be illegal, considering how strict tech laws are about the data of minors. However, that’s not always the case.

Back to 5 Star Students here, what is the initial criticism surrounding the app? 

Well, the first critiques surrounding the app came from the Fresno Bee, a news site stationed in San Joaquin Valley in Fresno, California on March 21, 2024. The article details a school in Fresno who was using the app as a bathroom tracker.

According to them, students were only delegated to a few restroom breaks daily. Once they put in their school ID to use the restroom, a 7-minute countdown would begin. 

While the report mentions that there are negatives with this, such as rhetorical scenarios like, “what if it takes longer for the student to use the restroom, due to long lines or unavailable bathrooms?” There are a few reported positives, like it preventing their students from loitering in the hallways. 

While this story got the attention of sites like Fox News, it wasn’t the first school with students that had concerns regarding the app. 

On January 13, 2024, The News Gazette, stationed in Illinois, reported on a case happening in Champaign Central High School. This was where three students started a petition in order to stop their school from using the 5 Star Students app to not only track their bathroom breaks or attendance, but their data as a whole. 

Yes, 5 Star Students can track you. 

In the app, there are certain features that you need to access by giving the app permission to track your location, so your teachers can track you. 

One student specifically mentions an aspect about this whole thing that really concerns them, and that is the implementation of turning 5 Star Students into a replacement for physical ID’s, despite schools already making mandatory ID’s for students to keep them while on campus. 

The petition campaign reads as follows:

“As a concerned student in Champaign, IL, I am deeply troubled by the recent shift from traditional paper hall passes to a phone app. This change is not only an invasion of personal privacy but also serves as a distraction during class hours. Our right to privacy should not be compromised under the guise of modernization or efficiency.”

Not only do the students mention how inconvenient it is to use a phone app as a bathroom, attendance, and activity tracker, but it also mentions how invasive the phone is. 

These are also just reports made by people and made the news. If you look at the Apple and Google play stores and look at the reviews of the app, it’s mostly negative. 

As of September 2024, there are over 100,000 downloads of the app, 1,135 reviews, and the rating sits at a 1.3 on the Google app store. 

The reviews have common complaints of crashing and interface issues, meaning for some users, the app just won’t work on their phones. There’s also complaints of a bland and boring layout, looking like it was made in 5 minutes. 

However, a boring looking layout is the sky over this iceberg. One of the most consistent criticisms of the app resides in the fact it requires your location information to access most of the features. 

This includes: finding your school to even register the app, finding games, or registering to school events. 

On the surface, that doesn’t sound so bad, until more reviews began to mention how when you DO enable the location permissions, the app (and extension to the teachers) can see everything on your phone. 

The reviews don’t mention the schools the individuals that post them go to, but from their reviews, it sounds like some schools are using 5 Star Students to block apps like something like GoGuardian works on Chromebooks. 

There were even a few complaints of the app supposedly changing user’s phone functions, like manipulating their alarms and blocking music listening apps both during and out of school. 

So, for some, it is an invasion of privacy. If teachers can see whatever you’re doing on your phone, block certain things, and use it to track your attendance and bathroom time without explicit permission from the student, it is an invasion of privacy.

Now, as a student expected to use this app for certain school uses and to log into school activities, I have similar complaints. 

It was just one day during sophomore year last year that I was told to use this app. Why? No explicit clue. I was just told during a back-to-school presentation that we were expected to use it as a digital ID. I just thought, “what’s wrong with the regular ID’s?” and I just didn’t bother with the app. 

But then I decided to download it for myself as part of research for this article. 

Personally, the app just feels redundant to use. We have apps like Schoology to view our schedules. Plus, we’re given paper schedules at the beginning of each school year. We also have registration at the beginning of August, where we gain ID’s with our information on it. 

The app also just… doesn’t have much you can do on it. Sure, it does its job. It finds school events, has your schedule, and your ID, but the fact that the app allows others to spy on your phone and even manipulate it, seems unfair to the student that has to use it. 

It’s one thing to manage bathroom breaks. My school has had problems with such in the past, but to use it to track the student’s location? That doesn’t sound right. 

However, while this is a clear violation of privacy, and something unfair to the student, who may not know what the app is truly capable of with their data and privacy, 5 Star Students isn’t spyware. 

As far as reports go, there’s only a few reviews in the app store that reports data selling, but no real proof has come out about 5 Star Students selling sensitive school data of many minors. 

That’s what mostly concerns me, and many others specifically. The main demographic of the app is geared towards middle and high schoolers. Those who are clearly children. 

From my experience, seeing all this at CMHS, the high school didn’t really get much exposure to 5 Star Students, at least, not compared to the middle school side, which I feel might be worse. 

High schoolers are typically 14-17 year olds. Middle schoolers are 12-13. Spying on children as low as that isn’t right, even if our school doesn’t explicitly spy on us through the app, many other schools do. 

I’m not calling for the app to be taken down. I feel it could be useful with some of the features, like being able to find school events. 

What I am advocating for is the awareness of how harmful this app could be, and the safety concerns regarding such an app geared towards high schoolers being considered “spyware” by the ones who are forced to use it.