Surveillance is the business model of the Internet, according to computer security analyst Bruce Schneier in a recent New York Times article on European data privacy. Surveillance is also, apparently, the business model of our own Colorado Department of Education.

CDE prefers to call its work “longitudinal analysis.” It started when the state decided to measure cohorts of students from kindergarten through high school. The Legislature added measures down to pre-kindergarten, up to higher education and, recently, to careers and prison.

Longitudinal analysis requires increasingly intrusive tools to develop data. Many school districts, with assent from CDE, want teachers from preschool to third grade to videotape children as they behave before their very eyes. Video of preschoolers counting to 100 may document whether children will read at third grade.

Other kid behaviors, such as throwing rocks or temper tantrums, may predict whether a child ends up in the Department of Corrections at age 18.

Right now, CDE is building RISE, or Relevant Information to Strengthen Education, and something called a Data Pipeline. RISE data is piped to the federal government, other states and researchers. The CDE declares it will not share data with for-profit vendors, which is probably why so many education content providers now have nonprofit affiliates.

CDE is also moving toward common data terminology with other states, as well as “interoperability.” This allows CDE to share data easily with other entities, including states and the feds, and vice versa.

Here’s what CDE says: “Longitudinal analysis could tell communities and taxpayers if students from a particular program or elementary school eventually graduated from high school and college… Once data is matched to the correct student, additional data and attributes can be brought in on a student.”

Based on CDE’s description, at some point the department should be able to predict which public pre-K childcare facilities produce the most criminals — down to criminal names, addresses, Social Security numbers, every school involved in the criminals’ history, every teacher involved, every disciplinary action per criminal, and so on.

Minority Report, the Tom Cruise movie about a prospective criminal and a crime that’s predicted to happen, dramatizes the potential dark side of linked programs like RISE, the Data Pipeline and “longitudinal analysis.” CDE data collection is ultimately about data sharing, prediction and consequences.

On a happier note, at some point, Coloradans shouldn’t have to vote on elected officials. They’ll be identified no later than 3rd grade based on video of little ones cleaning white boards. The best cleaners can be properly prepared and career-ready with more science than is applied when, say, Tibetans pick the Dali Lama. As Voltaire predicted in 1759, just before the French Revolution, all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.