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Practical Considerations for AI & Integrated Data Systems: Implicit Bias November 6, 2023 Morgan Sexton, Katherine Kalpos, and Amelia Vance There has been lots of hype recently around artificial intelligence (AI), including its magical promises and potential risks. While it may be tempting to get swept up in the potential around AI and incorporate it into Integrated Data Systems (IDSs) right away, it is crucial to understand that AI is only as good as the information fed into it and the soundness of the algorithms that it relies on. Additionally, the implementation of AI into IDSs can create significant ethical […]
Read More48 Hours of Student Privacy News In the past two days, the child and student privacy landscape has been overwhelmed with an influx of news and announcements. The biggest? The FTC’s new settlement with edtech company Edmodo might break school technology use in a few different ways, including shifts on which education entities edtech vendors can contract with and what rights parents have to modify or delete their children’s education data. While that would certainly be enough to hold our attention, we also saw: A major conservative think tank stating publicly that they believe that the pending and likely to […]
Read MorePrivacy Impacts of the Federal Parent Bill of Rights 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 full House next […]
Read MoreFebruary Updates TLDR: February has been (unofficial) child privacy month. These issues were the focus of last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, received the “loudest ovation” during the State of the Union, and popped up during the recent House Education and Workforce Committee hearing. Here are this month’s highlights and our big takeaways: Senate Hearing: Protecting Our Children Online “Senators from both parties are once again taking aim at big tech companies, reigniting their efforts to protect children from “toxic content” online. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, they said they plan to “act swiftly” to get a […]
Read MorePreview text Support for Child Privacy Protections “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit. And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.” – President Biden, 2023 State of the Union Address At the State of the Union (SOTU) address last Tuesday night, President Biden reaffirmed that child privacy remains a priority for his administration. This statement […]
Read MoreJanuary Updates Cross-posted from AASA Blog TLDR: Soon-to-be reintroduced federal parent rights bill may allow parents to opt out of most EdTech. Child privacy bills crafted without education input continue to risk banning school technology use – as was the case with the almost-passed COPPA 2.0 and Kids Online Safety Act in December. Just in case that wasn’t enough, President Biden published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, noting that “Congress can find common ground on the protection of privacy, competition and American children.” He called on Congress to pass legislation that would “hold Big Tech accountable” and to tighten pre-existing legislation, which may-unintentionally-further […]
Read MoreThis 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.
Read MoreThis 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.
Read MoreFTC Issues EdTech & COPPA Policy Statement 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 of this one from EdWeek) […]
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