Ontario private school scrutinized over class video surveillance, making kids watch themselves ‘misbehaving’

A former student of a London, Ont., private school and parents are concerned that children were under constant video surveillance in the classroom and asked to critique the footage with their peers.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) says it’s investigating the matter after receiving a complaint.

Lincoln Sandle, 11, attended Infinity School from August 2023 until January 2026, when he was in Grades 3 through 5.

He said a common classroom activity involved watching back videos of himself and classmates that were captured by multiple surveillance cameras throughout the school.

“The whole class was in one room, and we had a projector and we watched us with audio,” Lincoln said. “[We watched] how we were misbehaving and who needed the most help.

“People watching me is weird. I just don’t like people invading my privacy.”

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Lincoln’s parents both gave CBC News permission to interview and photograph him for this story. 

Infinity School focuses on hands-on and self-directed learning, according to its website.

It’s an affiliate of Acton Academy, a U.S.-based network of schools that emphasize Socratic discussions and project-based “quests,” its website explains. Each school is independently owned by “parent entrepreneurs,” who must follow a “shared learning design and high standards of excellence,” it says.

A map on the website shows nearly 300 Acton schools around the world, including nine in Canada. 

Infinity School rents space in a church in London’s Wortley Village for its multi-grade classrooms and other facilities. Lincoln estimates there were up to 10 cameras around the school, including in classrooms, hallways, the gym and library.

Infinity School in London rents out a church building in the Wortley Village neighbourhood for its classes. (Kendra Seguin/CBC News)

“You couldn’t really talk about anything private with your friends,” Lincoln said. “It just cages us up.”

In a joint email statement to CBC News, the head of the Acton Academy Network, Jake Thompson, and Infinity School principal Eric Brown said cameras are meant to be a tool within the schools.

“At Acton, we trust young people with the responsibility for their own learning, and an important part of that learning is leadership,” Thompson said in a separate email. “Cameras give learners the ability to document, review and reflect on their leadership and learning experiences.”

Neither Thompson nor Brown responded to CBC’s request for interviews.

Lincoln’s father, Greg Sandle, said he didn’t know Infinity School had cameras when he first enrolled his two children, but started noticing them when he visited the school.

“I thought they were just for security … I didn’t believe that the cameras would be used for anything other than what I thought they were intended for, which was just safety of kids in the school,” Sandle said.

Greg Sandle says his family was not aware of how cameras were being used at Infinity School in London until he withdrew his children from classes there. (Kendra Seguin/CBC News)

He said he learned otherwise when the school’s principal referred to camera footage in a December 2025 correspondence.

Some other parents told CBC News they also were also unaware of the cameras located inside the school until earlier this year, when conversations started within parent circles.

Thompson and Brown didn’t respond to CBC’s questions about when and how parents were informed about the cameras, but said they are “openly discussed and visible to families.”

Public and private schools follow different privacy regulations laid out by different levels of government.

Ontario public schools are subject to the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which is set out by Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

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A spokesperson from the office said school boards must determine whether they have “lawful authority” to collect personal information, including surveillance footage. Consent is not required, though public notice is needed as part of the school’s “transparency obligations,” the spokesperson said.

The OPC oversees the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which applies to organizations that collect, use and disclose personal information for commercial activities.

The Infinity School logo is shown inside the doorway to the private school at 120 Bruce St. in London. (Kendra Seguin/ CBC News)

PIPEDA may apply to private schools “if they engage in activities that are commercial in nature.”

Infinity School is listed on the Ontario Business Registry as a corporation.

“PIPEDA provides that, unless certain exceptions apply, the knowledge and consent of the individual is required for the collection, use, or disclosure of their personal information,” spokesperson Vito Pilieci said.

Pilieci declined to share the nature of the complaint about Infinity School, but said it is reaching out to the school to collect more information and determine next steps.

Sarah Starrs, another parent, said she remembers learning about cameras during an interview with the school before enrolling her then seven-year-old son in September 2024.

She recalled finding out that cameras would be used in the older students’ classrooms as a learning tool, but didn’t think it would be in her son’s mixed-age classroom for children as young as four years old.

Sarah Starrs sent her son to Infinity School in London from September 2024 to May 2026. She says she has questions about why there were cameras in his classroom and who had access to the footage. (Kendra Seguin/CBC News)

While searching through the school’s parent portal in February, Starrs said, she noticed a privacy policy document for the first time that outlined camera usage and livestreaming capabilities.

“I felt surprised and confused,” she said.

According to a July 2026 privacy policy on Infinity School’s website, Acton Academy requires all schools within its network to have cameras, which include livestream capabilities “for schoolwide inspection purposes only.”

However, parents say it’s unclear who has access to livestream footage and where they are located, given that Acton is based in the U.S.

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CBC News requested this information from Thompson and Brown multiple times, but didn’t receive a direct answer.

“We regularly revisit our policies and are currently reviewing not just camera use, but our broader approach to privacy, to ensure we are best serving families across our campuses,” they said.

Starrs said she continues to have questions about who has access to the livestream footage, which includes both images and audio of the children. She pulled her son out of Infinity School in May for unrelated reasons, but said the lack of transparency around cameras contributed to her decision to leave.

Lincoln said the cameras at Infinity School made him feel stressed about going to class.

“I always tried to be the favourite person because then I wouldn’t have bad stuff happen to me, like people watching me.”

Lincoln’s parents withdrew both their children from the school in January following a series of unrelated challenges, said his father. That’s when Lincoln first told his family about the in-class footage reviews.

Lincoln says he’s happier now that he’s left Infinity School and started at a new school in London. (Kendra Seguin/CBC News)

“It was heartbreaking [to hear] because we wanted to do the best we could for the kids, and it makes us feel like it was the worst decision of our lives to put him in that situation,” Sandle said.

Alissa Centivany, co-director of the Starling Centre for Just Technologies & Just Societies and a professor at Western University, said she has concerns about camera surveillance in classrooms.

“Schools have a responsibility to student safety and well-being,” Centivany said. “I think what we’re seeing with the use of cameras in schools is that it’s actually having the opposite effect, and it’s diminishing schools’ ability to carry out their legitimate and legal responsibilities.”

She said surveillance cameras should be used only when it is authorized by law and if it’s deemed necessary. For example, in a school setting, Centivany said, cameras could be justified when there is “illegal activity happening on school grounds or where there’s been fights outside the school.”

“How they were used as a way for school administrators and teachers to draw attention to classroom behaviour and use it as a teaching experience, to me, seems to not meet that second condition of being necessary.”

Lincoln started at a new school in September. He said there are no cameras on the premises.

“It makes me feel more open and able to share what I want with my friends,” he said.