Author name: Amelia Vance

Privacy Impact of the Federal Parent Bill of Rights

Thoughts / By /

Privacy Impacts of the Federal Parent Bill of Rights March 16, 2023 PIPC supports the technical work of AASA’s Student and Child Privacy Center. AASA has established policy priorities specific to student and child data and privacy. This analysis is informational, and any AASA advocacy positions or nuance are available on the AASA website.  In just over a week, the Parents Bill of Rights Act(PBOR) – a bill intended to give parents more control over their child’s education – was reintroduced, marked up, and passed out of the House Education and Workforce Committee. It will be voted on by the …

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Beyond Commercialization Concerns in Student Privacy

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This week’s newsletter focuses on a new report from Human Rights Watch. I decided to write it because this report joins many others from student privacy advocates that focus nearly exclusively on commercialization risks.

When student privacy reports focus again and again on advertising technology as the major threat to student privacy, stakeholders overlook other insidious privacy harms. The likely result of the report will be a series of articles about how student privacy is in crisis and there are not enough laws and companies are bad. That may draw attention to this issue, but it also means that other really important student privacy issues could fall by the wayside.

FTC Issues EdTech & COPPA Policy Statement

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FTC Issues EdTech & COPPA Policy Statement May 19, 2022 Cross-posted from Public Interest Privacy Consulting LLC Blog COPPA AND EDTECH NEWS FROM THE FTC! Today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted unanimously to adopt “a policy statement that announces the agency’s prioritization of the enforcement of COPPA as it applies to the use of education technology.” The full statement is available here. Overall, the policy statement is carefully characterized as existing legal requirements of COPPA that the FTC will focus on as they begin to ramp up their COPPA enforcement. (Need a refresher on COPPA in schools? I’m a fan …

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This Week in Child & Student Privacy

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy April 27, 2022 This has been a big week for new legislation and regulations. Few news outlets have reported on the child or student privacy implications of these bills, so the newsletter is in a slightly different format this week. What I’m Reading Cross-posted from Public Interest Privacy Consulting LLC Blog 1. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act Passes Out of Committee The bill was passed out of committee with amendments and re-referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee on the 25th, and read a second time and amended on the 26th. Some of …

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy April 4, 2022 What I’m Reading Cross-posted from Public Interest Privacy Consulting LLC Blog 1. UK ICO Blog: Why protecting children online in UK living rooms starts 5,000 miles away What’s Happening What Happened: The new UK Information Commissioner says that since “[t]he digital world is borderless, and so many of the online services children access are based outside of the UK,” the value of the UK’s Age-Appropriate Design Code depends on how the Code is received internationally. He highlights California’s version of the Code, and mentions that versions of the Code are progressing …

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy April 11, 2022 What I’m Reading Cross-posted from Public Interest Privacy Consulting LLC Blog 1. GovTech: Ed-Tech Companies Partner Up to Tackle Student Mental Health What’s Happening Two companies announced school partnerships to “tackle student mental health,” one of them by incorporating “information about a student’s social-emotional health and well-being into their college preparation, potentially helping schools give students more personalized attention in their post-graduation plans.” Why You Should Care This Government Technology article reads like a company press release, with no discussion of the massive privacy implications. Collecting student mental health information …

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This Week in Child & Student Privacy

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The Week in Child & Student Privacy April 1, 2022 What I’m Reading Cross-posted from Public Interest Privacy Consulting LLC Blog 1. Minnesota Pushing Bill That Says Websites Can No Longer Be Useful For Teenagers | Techdirt What’s Happening This bill “says that any social media platform with more than 1 million account holders (and operating in Minnesota) cannot use an algorithm to recommend content to users under the age of 18.” As the Chamber of Progress CEO points out, “YouTube Kids uses algorithms and manual curation to surface content appropriate for children and Twitter’s algorithms to help prioritize users find relevant …

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Student Privacy Primer

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Student Privacy Primer Juliana Cotto, Edith Mandinach, Amelia Vance, Jim Siegl, Anisha Reddy, Tyler Park, and Jasmine Parks This primer explains the concepts of student data, including who uses the data and why they use it; data privacy in general; student data privacy; student data privacy risks and harms; how student data privacy relates to data ethics and data equity; key federal privacy laws; key district and school policies; and what it means to foster a culture of privacy. Each of these sections and a concluding section list additional resources to help education stakeholders learn more about student data privacy. …

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The Privacy and Equity Implications of Using Self-Harm Monitoring Technologies

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The Privacy and Equity Implications of Using Self-Harm Monitoring Technologies Amelia Vance, Anisha Reddy, Yasamin Sharifi, Jasmine Park, and Sara Collins Future of Privacy Forum Shared under CC BY 4.0 license Originally posted on Student Privacy Compass September 27, 2021 As educators and school leaders return to campus after two years of significant upheaval and loss, many are prioritizing efforts focused on students’ well-being, including ensuring that students receive adequate mental health support. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, some experts suggest that the stressors associated with the pandemic and learning from home may have impacted students’ mental health, potentially increasing students’ …

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Teaching privacy and ethical guardrails for the AI imperative in education

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Teaching Privacy and Ethical Guardrails for The AI Imperative in Education Evan Selinger & Amelia Vance Originally published by the NSW Department of Education Future EDge, Issue 3 December 2020 Introduction In 1956 computer scientist John McCarthy coined the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI) to describe ‘the science and engineering of making intelligent machines’ (McCarthy, 2007). Over time, the term has evolved to cover a variety of technologies, including ones widely used in education, from plagiarism detectors to voice-activated virtual assistants leveraged to enhance campus information distribution and classroom pedagogy (Arizona State University, 2018). Contemporary AI discussions are about ‘a variety …

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