How Much Can They See?

Hi, I work in a small public school.
As we are in lockdown, there are no classes but teachers have to still be at school 8 hours a day and
I'm doing this for 2+ months. I do my work but there's a lot of free time and bored-out-of-my-mind moments.

I do a lot of chatting on website forums, facebook groups, watch youtube videos and post lots of comments, and do some financial business online as well. I've been doing it for over 10 years without any problems, but as technology keeps evolving and becomes more invasive, I just get paranoid and wonder how much can they see what I am doing?

1. Obviously, if I am using their computer at work, it may have software installed that can allow someone else in the network or a tech person to remotely access and control my computer, see everything I am seeing on my screen word for word, picture for picture, even record it secretly. I don't know for sure if they are or have ever been watching or recording. Probably not because as I've said, done it for 10 years.

2. Is a safer option to bring in my own laptop to work and plug it into the internet? In this case, I know for sure there are no bugs or software programs in my own laptop. The only thing that is connecting my laptop to their network is the internet line. So yes, based on my assigned IP address for my office, I assume they can still see what websites I visit / ie browsing history even without looking at my laptop. But my question is, can they see more than that or just the addresses? For example, if I am watching a Donald Trump video on youtube, I know they can see that I visited that page/video via the url address. But can they see what I type? So if I left a comment in the video and said, "I love Donald Trump", can they also see all the comments I leave behind? I would think that requires a remote access to view exactly what I see on my screen but I think via IP address only, they can only see the links or url addresses that I go to, not what I actually type.

3. For absolute privacy and security from prying eyes, is it true that if I just use my smartphone unlimited data plan and turn it into a hotspot or tethering and connect my personal laptop to it to get internet access, then nobody at my work place can see what I am doing on my laptop and what websites I'm visiting? I believe this is the same thing as just using your smartphone and nobody at work can track or see what you are doing on your own smartphone as the internet service is not connected to the work place network but your own private internet plan with the phone provider.

 

Use your own Laptop and Smartphone.
It's the right thing to do.

 

We are talking about a small public school, any device connected to their network will reveal the websites you visit, but most unlikely the content involved unless they have a very good reason to look.

What i mean is that it takes quite a lot of time and specialist software to run forensics against the sites you visit, they will very unlikely spend this time and specialist knowledge unless they are investigating you in a digital sense. (passwords of the relevent sites being the major hurdle)
ie You would need to be a target on their radar for either criminal activity, or something likewise.

It wont matter if you use your own device..... if you are connected to their network, you will be visible to the admins of that network.

If you have your own device and want to remain stealth, its better that you use your own network connection and thus, your own data allocations! (as you mention in 3).

 

Thanks for all the replies. It makes a lot of sense!

Cheers