ABSTRACT The adoption of ‘free’ large-scale proprietary platforms, such as Microsoft 365 for Education and Google Workspace for Education by public education has raised significant concerns, including student privacy, technological lock-in, as well as a privatization of educational governance. Because of their ‘non-onerous’ nature, there is limited open documentation to understand the scope and substance of these agreements. This study explores the associations between public education with large software corporations associated with surveillance capitalism in Brazil. The data, requested via formal requests for information sent to all states, demonstrate that the majority of states have adopted these platforms, with a sharp rise during the COVID-19 pandemic. An in-depth legal analysis of the contracts shows that the apparently ‘non-onerous’ nature of these contracts can be used to obscure the business models of surveillance capitalism, which are based on data extraction and processing. Implications for educational governance and school actors are discussed.