Quakertown: Safe2Say app ‘weaponized’
Misuse led to recent closures, district superintendent says
The statewide school threat and bullying tipline has been “weaponized,” the Quakertown Community School District superintendent said in a blog post March 14, after the district was forced to implement a lockdown and closures at schools thanks to threats that came in through the program.
In all, threats against Strayer Middle School and Quakertown Community High School prompted three closures over the last two weeks, as well as a lockdown and additional police presence another day.
Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say Something program was established in 2019. Operated by the state attorney general’s office, it’s designed to teach students, parents and other adults to recognize the warning signs of someone who may be a threat to themselves or others. It provides an online platform for tips on any safety issue, from students using drugs or talking about suicide to rumors about violence in school.
The tips are received and evaluated at a 24-hour crisis center to determine whether they’re urgent. Where someone’s life is potentially at risk, the tips are passed to law enforcement and school officials in real time to allow an immediate response.
“What has happened is the S2SS platform, which was designed to help us identify problems and get help for those children who need it, is being weaponized against our school community,” Superintendent Bill Harner wrote in the post. “The abuse and weaponizing of the S2SS system may or may not continue ... but I have been assured [state and local law enforcement’s] full investigative power is being brought to bear on finding who is sending the false tips. I expect them to be found, brought to justice and be given help.”
District officials, local law enforcement, representatives from the attorney general’s office and the FBI have met to discuss the threats, according to the blog post.
According to Quakertown police officer Bob Lee, a school resource officer, part of the issue is that tips aren’t
screened for whether they’re coming from the darknet before they’re forwarded on to school districts. In this case, the tips were coming through the Tor network, meaning they were bounced overseas and harder to track, Lee said.
Lee said those calls coming from the darknet — a part of the internet hosted in an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools — need to be filtered out.
“We shouldn’t be taking these because we know they’re not authentic,” Lee said.
He said the district has dealt in the past with fraudulent claims, but those came through legitimate servers and were easier to trace, Lee said.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on filtering tips from the darknet.
“We are collaborating with all levels of law enforcement on this matter and do not publicly comment on the protocols for the program,” a spokesperson for the department wrote in a statement. “This system is an important tool for our schools and students, however, any abuse of this system will be faced with the full force of law enforcement. Tips are fully anonymous when submitted legitimately. False tips will be prosecuted.”
Analysts vet tips 24/7 and try to create a two-way dialogue with tipsters, according to the AG’s office. They determine whether the tip is a critical life/safety matter or not, and discern whether the tip is a prank.
The attorney general’s office doesn’t have jurisdiction to investigate tips, but can provide school districts with the information that came through the program or resources they need. It doesn’t monitor incoming IP addresses or phone numbers unless told of a problem or exigent threat to life and safety.
The Quakertown threats are under investigation.
The district started dealing with fraudulent claims through Safe2Say Something in February, when tips came in that required an immediate police response to people’s homes. The tips were false, Lee said, with officers in some cases rousing residents from sleep.
Then the threats were directed at the district’s high school and Strayer Middle School, prompting their temporary closures.
In his blog post, Harner urged parents to speak with their children about the importance of using Safe2Say Something correctly. He also asked them to check their children’s phones for apps that link them to the darknet.
Safe2Say Something is for much more than threats to schools. Students also use it to anonymously report whether they think their friends are suicidal, taking drugs, victims of bullying or suffering from mental health issues.
In the 2019-20 school year, the Safe2Say Something program received 23,745 tips, excluding false reports or test tips, according to an annual report. The most commonly reported tips were about bullying, suicide ideation and self harm.
Threats against a school were the seventh most common type of tip, with 1,156 in that category, according to the report.
That year, the program received 1,261 false or prank tips. State analysts immediately identified 761 as pranks. The other 500 were classified as “deliberate abuse of system,” which are tips that contain seemingly credible information yet proven untrue upon investigation, or were intended to harm or disrupt.
Overall, school district officials say the system is working.
“Right now, it’s a worthwhile program and I think it’s assisted many students that normally wouldn’t have come forward with either mental or physical abuse concerns that we were able to address as a school district,” Nazareth Area Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik said.
Christopher Schiffert, assistant to the superintendent at Whitehall-Coplay, said he wouldn’t change Safe2Say. Before the program existed, the district had set up a tip line at the high school that was rarely, if ever used. But with Safe2Say Something, the program is accessible, and there are many educational materials the district can use to make sure everyone knows about it.
“I think it’s very effective. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do,” he said. “Prior to Safe2Say, there wasn’t necessarily a universal method for people to make referrals that was anonymous and easy.”
John Remaley, supervisor of safe schools for Easton Area School District, agrees with Lee, that if tips could be a little more filtered it would be easier for everybody.
But overall, the district, which has its own police force, hasn’t had to close schools because of fraudulent tips. Remaley and his team have been able to trace them themselves, once even finding a boy who made the threats and charging him accordingly.
“There are some drawbacks, but I think there’s a whole lot of good that comes out of it in terms of giving students an anonymous way to provide information about incidents, whether that’s threats, bullying, drug use,” Remaley said. “Nothing’s ever going to be perfect, but you try when you can to investigate each and every one of the tips and some are going to be groundless.”
False tips come at a cost that ranges from the financial — such as those affiliated with closing a school and bringing in a bomb squad — to the emotional.
“When we have to close a school and part of that call involves some type of explosives, bombs, IEDs, then we have to do our due diligence and call the bomb dogs in and search the building before we can open it. That costs money, investigations from other agencies costs money, police response costs money,” he said. “The community right now is hurting, and between COVID and these pranks, we’re living in a state of fear.”