Recommended Resources
State Laws
April 2024
Jessica Arciniega, Katherine Kalpos, Morgan Sexton, and Amelia Vance
CC BY-NC 4.0
Introduction
With an abundance of exceptional resources and training programs out there, brushing up on federal child and student privacy laws like FERPA and COPPA has never been more accessible. And while mastery of these is crucial, it's just the beginning. Since 2014, legislators across the states have passed over 140 new child and student privacy laws. Diving deep into the specific provisions of state legislation is no longer a bonus–it is essential. We’ve pulled together our top resources to help you stay on top of the ever evolving patchwork of state child and student privacy laws. Let’s dig in.
1. Overall Resource
When it comes to understanding the intricate web of state child and student privacy laws, navigating the vast sea of information can be a daunting task. We recommend this extensive table, State Student Privacy Laws, from the Student Privacy Compass for an overview of each state’s student privacy laws. This resource includes the essential details for each law, including the year of enactment (going all the way back to 2013!), which state it is in, and the bill and statute citations along with links to the corresponding texts on the state website. It also clearly delineates which entities are regulated under each law and offers a succinct, high-level summary of the legislation. You can search the table by state or keyword, which makes using this resource as straightforward and intuitive as possible. If you are looking to learn more about the overarching landscape of state student privacy laws–or just to see a lot of the bills passed in the past decade all in one place–start by looking at this table.
2. Child Privacy Bill Tracker
To stay up to date with the many state child privacy bills introduced in 2024, turn to Husch Blackwell LLP.’s 2024 State Children's Privacy Law Tracker. This invaluable tool features an interactive map, color-coded by the status of each bill to allow you to visually track legislative progress across the nation. When you click on a state, it gives you direct links to the full text of bills located on the state's official websites. This tracker will be your go-to resource to quickly see what states are actively moving child privacy legislation this year.
*P.S. Interested in seeing what moved last year at the state level? Check out their 2023 State Children's Privacy Law Tracker.
3. AI Bill Tracker
Many state legislatures have introduced and passed bills to regulate AI over the last couple of years. Keeping track of all of these bills can be challenging, but Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP. is here to help with their US state-by-state AI legislation snapshot. Updated every quarter, this tracker features an interactive map that is color-coded to indicate the status of AI-related bills across different states. By simply clicking on a state, you can get a list of all the state’s AI bills with their current status, direct links to the official bill texts, and a succinct summary of its content. Refer back to this resource over time to see how the state AI legislation landscape is changing.
4. State Summaries
For those interested in comparing the diverse approaches to student privacy across different states, we highly recommend the State Student Privacy Law Compendium from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). While out of date (published in 2016), this guide remains a valuable tool for grasping the overarching strategies and frameworks for protecting student privacy that have been employed by different states. This resource details how each state approached topics like use restrictions, data minimization, security measures, auditing and accountability processes, and individual participation. Check out this resource to see the general trends and variations in how different states approach student privacy legislation.
As always, feel free to reach out to us with your state privacy questions. We are happy to be a resource for your student and child privacy related questions!