Learning Tool or Spyware? “Impero” Found On School-Provided Laptops
November 8, 2017
This is the first year that the Sophomores and Freshmen got their own, personal, school-provided “One to One” laptops. While these laptops are very convenient and useful, they can also be potentially a way for the school to monitor you via an installed piece of software called Impero.
Impero Education Pro is a piece of software that monitors everything you type, searching for key words like “drugs”. “The software then logs the capture in a … database as a screenshot or video recording with details of the incident, including the user, the application, the date and time.” Staff can also “Set automatic …[actions], e.g. ban internet, lock screen” when a certain keyword or keywords are found. This means that if Impero accidentally detects something bad, you could be locked out of “your” computer. Then the school administration can see the screenshot / video recording sent.
Impero does this by putting code into all programs on the computer (via a .DLL).2 In other words, makes its code run before your program starts up. Also, programs start slower than usual, making a computer that already runs on 4GB of RAM (the average for 2013, which was before Windows 8.1 was released) stressed to run even a few applications.
In addition, Impero has “…[a] live thumbnail view of student devices”, allowing the staff to see everything on your screen. Staff can also trigger a screenshot or a screen recording at any time.
Apparently, Impero can “track devices using geo-location management”, although it’s unsure what this means. It may be referring to the ability to assign rules per room, or a more in-depth tracking system. Also, Impero allows the network admins to remotely control your computer and add software.
And in case you wanted to remove or disable Impero, you can’t. In fact, you can do very little with “your” computer because you don’t control it. Your account isn’t an admin account, so you can’t add or remove programs, or even the desktop shortcuts that you don’t use.
And in case you thought deleting a document deletes it, Impero “stores data captures of incidents/web history/application use/printed documents/deleted documents and activity timeline”.It isn’t very subtle about itself, announcing itself with a desktop notification whenever you log in on school WiFi that “Impero Workstation is Active”. Its in the taskbar, too, so clearly it isn’t trying to hide its presence.
So far, fairly few students and even teachers know what Impero is and what it does. When asked about it, John Ranta, computer teacher said:
“…I don’t know much … about it. I first noticed it when I was logging in to a computer in Lab 241, so it is running in the computer labs. A little window popped up, telling me that an app was launched, called Impero. As far as I know, no one has announced it, so I don’t know who authorized it. And I don’t know if it’s been put to use.”
When I asked members of the Community Council this year and last, none of them recall voting or even discussing this. Clearly, this was not authorized by students, and not well communicated (if at all) to teachers.
When asked about Impero, Christina Len, the SHS Technology Specialist, said:
“Impero is a teaching management software that will be very useful in classrooms … It allows the teacher to have some control over the students’ laptops during class, for example, they could push out a link to everyone’s laptop and have each student click on the link rather than having to type it in.”
She also says that it is not active and does not work at home:
“Impero does have some monitoring capabilities, however, we will not be using those here. Impero only works at school, not at home. At this time, Impero is not active. We installed it on the 1:1 laptops just to make it easier for us when we do activate the product.”
HOW TO CHECK OUT IMPERO FOR YOURSELF
If you would like to see where Impero is on your computer, click on the up arrow in the tray (bottom-right of the screen):
Click on the orange and blue ring icon to reveal a menu:
Clicking on the “Open Impero Console” icon just results in the error “You are not permitted to run Impero Console”. Clicking on “Properties” reveals information about your computer. Clicking on “Personal Groups” reveals a sub-menu where you can add yourself to a group or remove yourself from one, but none are available. The most interesting one is “Disable Impero”, which asks you for a password. Entering something in and pressing “OK” simply closes the dialog and nothing else happens.
Aspen • May 10, 2021 at 10:45 am
I’m conflicted on Impero’s purpose for school districts…On one hand, it’s advertised as protection for students, but on the other hand, if a majority of students aren’t in person, what would be the point? Even if you can view what we’re doing on this computer, the same activity is still happening on personal computers, tablets, phones, and consoles. It feels less like a protection soft ware, and more like needless monitoring, and power tripping.
Dr Nepeta • Mar 23, 2021 at 12:57 pm
the “doesnt work at home” isnt true in the slightest. i seriously don’t get why the school district wants your data so much.
Alex • Mar 17, 2021 at 3:50 pm
“Impero only works at school, not home”. NOT NECESSARILY! Impero can function properly anywhere where you have access to an Active Directory Domain Controller with appropriate credentials. Just buy a pc and plonk Server 2016 on it, set up AD and you’re good to go
Anon • Feb 23, 2021 at 4:05 pm
Oh that’s funny. My school district ordered this spyware to be installed on school laptops back in 10th grade, and it’s a complete breach of privacy. Not only is it abundantly clear that they love to take children’s 3rd party data (they sell what they are given), but as soon as they stop receiving it, IT admins are notified and in the case of my school district, they lost their minds due to the fact they couldn’t take my precious data since I was able to disable Impero (it’s possible, but as noted here, when that data flow stops, school admins will eventually notice since they can’t keep cooming to kid’s data). Impero is spyware and it should be treated as such. I got suspended from my school for 5 days because of it (my school didn’t even have a choice, the district forced me to be suspended) to basically force me into submission to not disable this software. Then just 2 months later, COVID-19 became an issue and now I’ve never been on Impero since due to the fact I haven’t been in school irl since March of 2020. If any of the IT people at [redacted school district] manage to see this, WHY do you guys like kid’s data so much? Ya’ll are so lucky I have a soul and didn’t seek legal action, because my parents talked to a lawyer about it, we could’ve had a case 🙂
kid from school • Feb 9, 2021 at 5:33 pm
I have got a laptop from my school and i do personal stuff on it, so im glad to hear that it is not activated at home. However, i do notice that every once in a while, impero goes up to around 30 percent cpu then goes back down. I feel like this is some kind of way to spy on us or something. As there is no need to randomly go up to 30% cpu for a sec then go back down. Creepy. Happy to hear it is disabled at home tho
SCYTHER • Oct 16, 2020 at 6:20 pm
THEY KEEP ME FROM HAVING FUN! I WAS IN AN ROLE PLAY AND ALL OF A SUDDEN MY PARENTS GET AN EMAIL AND THEY WERE PISSED, THE TEACHER WAS IGNORING ME SO I WAS DOING THE SAME! IT’S BAD PEOPLE, IT’S BAD!
bruh • Feb 20, 2020 at 9:03 pm
They once used impero to ban me from tcad and it said it was banned because it contianed dashboard tinkercad so i just went to my profile on tcad,not the dashboard and it worked.they keep warning me they are gonna ban me from tcad again,HA,i’d like to see them try!
A student • Dec 20, 2019 at 5:56 am
My friend’s fave website (a yu-gi-oh one) is blocked. My fave website is amazon since I like to look at pc components like a gtx 1070 and I am worried if it gets banned… Also the antivirus shows impero is MALWARE!
Ulu • Dec 2, 2019 at 7:31 am
It’s very dumb, like it’s no safe and google translate is banned for no reason. It is scary how any one who is an administrator can see everything you do. Im writing this in a class, and teachers can see what i write and it is scary. My Pc just got locked for writing this. This is bad.
Benjamin C • Nov 18, 2019 at 3:38 pm
I don’t necessarily disapprove of this client but what worries me is the ability of the software to enable the camera software on my chromebook and view that screen. The administrator is able to open up websites and other programs so why wouldn’t they be able to access my camera and open it in the background. Just worries me that there isn’t any regulation for the administrators themselves.
TF5333 • Feb 12, 2019 at 7:52 am
Cameron Lawson
its called an ‘insecure CAT5 ports and an admin login’
miles grisham • Jan 29, 2019 at 2:13 pm
so I’m on a team that helps with student Chromebook and technology for teachers etc. but Impero can also access your Chromebook at home using the permissions granted to it by the administrators. but this means that if connected at home to your internet the device can access all unprotected devices on the network so if you get a virus that targets Impero not only is the entire schools’ computers at risk so are all of your home devices connected to the internet.
Awesomeboy734 • Dec 11, 2018 at 5:32 pm
You are correct, my teachers have Impero, and it gives us no freedom whatsoever
Max Hogan, Contributing Author and Tech Guru • Jan 17, 2019 at 8:42 am
If your talking internet wise, some freedoms are restricted. However not all freedom is restricted.
Max Hogan, Contributing Author and Tech Guru • Oct 18, 2018 at 3:08 pm
@Cameron Lawson
Unfortunately it’s extensively difficult to do this, as it’s an administrator software. I wouldn’t even recommend trying.
Also, if you manage to do this, it would be very bad.
Cameron Lawson • Aug 29, 2018 at 12:08 pm
How do we get impero off the computer completely
Max Hogan, Contributing Author and Tech Guru • Nov 21, 2017 at 12:56 pm
This is an awesome article! Great job!
Max Hogan, Contributing Author and Tech Guru • Feb 2, 2018 at 5:53 pm
Thanks! It was a lot of fun to write!
Ethan McFee • Nov 9, 2017 at 2:01 pm
EXPOSED