In private alpha testing
The Trusted Network Extension, TNE in short, is a Chrome extension that lets users in MOE schools access the trusted network without requiring additional authentication.
This extension records the level of activity of users of this trusted network. This is so that users of this trusted network are responsible and accountable users.
In short, the ID of the user's school account, the local and remote IP addresses of the device that user is on, the level of activity (active or idle) and the timestamps of the collected data.
This extension is deployed to users in a school with the trusted network. The individual user need not do anything to obtain this extension.
When you sign in to your Chromebook using your school account (i.e. an account ending with the domain name of your school), the extension is automatically installed and you get access to the network automatically. Contrast this with the Seggregated Wireless Network (SWN), where you are required to sign in to the network before you get access to the Internet.
No. This is enforced by the school. If you do not want TNE to store any data, you can choose to sign in to your own Chromebook using your personal Google account. Note that this also implies that you do not get seamless access to the trusted network.
School-owned Chromebooks may have a setting that only allows school user accounts to sign in to the Chromebooks. In this case, you do not have the option to sign in with your personal account.
The benefit is that you will be able to get onto the network immediately.
Schools that do not limit access of the Chromebooks to school user accounts will require you to sign in to the SWN once (just once) in order to receive the Chrome policies and TNE.
MOE requires that the data be kept for audit purposes for at least one year.
Students who have graduated will not have the TNE pushed down to thei accounts. Correspondingly, they do not have access to the trusted network as well.
Currently there is no such policy for teachers. As mentioned above, if the teacher does not want the extension (thus access to the network), they should sign in to another account that is not from the school.
It is not. Although your school account and your MOE account both use Gmail, they are completely separate identities.