Corporate Congress Turns Blind Eye to High Tech Predators in Schools

The do nothing bill is called the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act.

Clip from NYTimes:

. . . some privacy experts said the draft bill had major loopholes that would allow school services to use student information in ways students and parents might not expect or find acceptable.

For example, it allows school services to make unilateral changes to their contracts and privacy policies. It permits them to disclose student information for purposes like preparing for “employment opportunities.” And it would not prohibit sites like ConnectEDU from selling student records as part of a merger or acquisition.

The bill is also unlikely to prohibit companies like Pearson from monitoring the social media posts of students if those activities are performed on behalf of state educational agencies.

“Although this bill has some promising features,” said Khaliah Barnes, director of the student privacy project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research center in Washington, “it ultimately fails to uphold President Obama’s promise that the data collected in an educational context can be used only for educational purposes.”