PIPC Resources

Student Privacy and Special Education: An Educator’s Guide During and After COVID-19

Student Privacy and Special Education: An Educator’s Guide During and After COVID-19 August 04, 2020 Lindsey Barrett and Amelia Vance National Center for Learning Disabilities & Future of Privacy Forum   Shared Under Creative Commons License COVID-19 has disrupted education and has forced schools to pivot quickly to a distance learning approach, which is often virtual. Using virtual learning products comes with concerns about student privacy, including for students receiving special education and related services. Federal privacy laws don’t explicitly address how to handle every situation, but concerns about privacy should not be a barrier to serving students as best […]

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Student Privacy’s History of Unintended Consequences: Lessons Learned and Key Principles for Student Privacy

IV. LESSONS LEARNED AND KEY PRINCIPLES FOR STUDENT PRIVACY Previously published in the Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy IV. LESSONS LEARNED AND KEY PRINCIPLES FOR STUDENT PRIVACY The unintended effects discussed above are emblematic of the challenges that privacy legislation has posed in the last decade, echoing many issues that arose when the U.S. Congress passed FERPA in 1974. For legislators, this history offers more than a cautionary tale; it suggests specific lessons and principles that policymakers can use to change the trajectory of future privacy legislation. For example, some of the student privacy laws were passed hastily

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Student Privacy’s History of Unintended Consequences: Student Privacy in the Modern Era

III. STUDENT PRIVACY IN THE MODERN ERA Previously published in the Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy III. STUDENT PRIVACY IN THE MODERN ERA Forty years after FERPA was passed, more than 1,000 bills on student privacy have been introduced in all fifty states since 2013,106 and more than 130 have passed in forty states and Washington, D.C. Like FERPA, most of the laws emerged in response to growing concerns over the increased amount of student data collected but also how stakeholders use, report, and protect this data. Well-publicized data breaches in the private sector (such as at Target

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Student Privacy’s History of Unintended Consequences

Student Privacy’s History of Unintended Consequences June 2020 Amelia Vance and Casey Waughn1   Previously published in the Seton Hall Journal of Legislation and Public Policy I. INTRODUCTION It is difficult to imagine a world in which schools cannot print students’ names on the honor roll or in school playbills; announce student athletes’ names, heights, and weights at the start of a game; and share financial aid information with appropriate institutions to ensure that students can finance their education. Yet, in the months following the enactment of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974, and forty years

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FAQs: The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment

FAQs: The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment March 27, 2020 David Sallay and Amelia Vance Future of Privacy Forum   Shared Under Creative Commons License This blog is the third in a series about how schools can practically apply student privacy laws. Read the first two blogs about FERPA here and here.  The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) has been around since the late 1970s and protects students from having to reveal personal information in certain surveys. It is possible you are already familiar with PPRA’s eight protected categories of information and already have the required policies in place to help ensure

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

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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9 Steps to Privacy: The Right to Seek to Amend under FERPA

9 Steps to Privacy: The Right to Seek to Amend under FERPA May 7, 2019 David Sallay and Amelia Vance Future of Privacy Forum   Shared Under Creative Commons License This blog is the second in a series about how schools can practically apply student privacy laws. Read the first blog on FERPA’s right to inspect and review here.  The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) grants parents and eligible students* the right to seek to amend student records that are inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise violate student privacy. This does not mean that schools must change a record whenever a

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11 Steps to Privacy: The Right to Inspect and Review under FERPA

11 Steps to Privacy: The Right to Inspect and Review under FERPA April 24, 2019 David Sallay and Amelia Vance Future of Privacy Forum   Shared Under Creative Commons License This blog is the first in a series about how schools can practically apply FERPA. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) grants parents and eligible students the right to inspect and review education records and to receive an explanation or interpretation of those records. To fulfill these rights, schools are obligated to follow a fair process. Specifically, schools must Give parents and eligible students the opportunity to inspect

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The Policymaker’s Guide to Student Data Privacy

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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Disclosing Student Information During School Emergencies: A Primer for Schools

Disclosing Student Information During School Emergencies: A Primer for Schools December 28, 2018 Chanda Marlowe, Sara Collins, and Amelia Vance Future of Privacy Forum   Shared Under Creative Commons License Schools are responsible for keeping students safe, but they also need to balance safety measures with privacy protections. When emergencies happen, schools may want or be asked to disclose information about students. In doing so, schools must comply with the primary federal student privacy law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Schools must also avoid sharing information that could stigmatize students, make them feel that they can’t share

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