PIPC Resources

What Is Self-Harm Monitoring Technology and How Do Schools Use It

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Part I: Background What Is Self-Harm Monitoring Technology and How Do Schools Use It? Schools often adopt self-harm monitoring technology with the best intentions: to help keep students safe and improve their well-being. However, if implemented without due consideration to the significant privacy and equity risks posed to students, these programs may harm the very students that need the most support or protection, while ineffectively fulfilling their intended purpose of preventing self-harm. Before adopting self-harm monitoring technology, schools and districts should understand the risks self-harm monitoring technology can pose to students’ privacy and safety, take thoughtful steps to mitigate those […]

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Introduction: 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 September 27, 2021 Amelia Vance, Anisha Reddy, Yasamin Sharifi, Jasmine Park, and Sara Collins   CC BY-NC 4.0 Download the PDF Introduction 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’ risks of self-harm and suicide.1 Given this increased

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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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School Safety Measures Must Have Evidence, Be Specific, & Have Privacy and Equity Guardrails

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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.

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The Policymaker’s Guide to Student Data Privacy

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The Policymaker’s Guide to Student Data Privacy April 2019 Tyler Park, Sara Collins, and Amelia Vance Future of Privacy Forum       Shared Under Creative Commons License Table of Contents Add a header to begin generating the table of contents Download the PDF Introduction Schools have always collected a wide range of data—from enrollment information, to tracking student performance throughout the year, to health and disciplinary records—to allow teachers and school leaders to best serve every student. As all levels of education institutions take advantage of technology, such as vast libraries of resources, learning management systems, and tools that

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Protecting Privacy of School Directory Information

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Protecting Privacy of School Directory Information December 2018 Amelia Vance Originally published by the National Association of State Boards of Education CC BY-NC 4.0 Students do not have the right to attend school anonymously, but they do have a right to have their information protected and used responsibly by local and state education agencies. State boards can help their states strike this balance. When the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was first passed in 1974, schools realized that they had a problem: Without ongoing consent from parents (or an applicable FERPA exception), they were unable to ask students

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