Parents had extensive concerns about student data collection, retention, and sharing. With no notice or help from schools, the investigative burden fell on parents and even students to understand the privacy implications of the technology they were using. Parents were kept in the dark about what apps their kids were required to use and what data was being collected.

Schools issued devices to students without their parents’ knowledge and consent. In particular, we found that in an alarming number of cases, ed tech suffered from: In Part 1, we report on the results of a large-scale survey and interview study we conducted throughout 2016. We aim to more precisely define the problems and issues around student privacy as they affect real students and their families, and to give stakeholders-including parents, students, administrators, and teachers-concrete steps they can take to advocate for student privacy in their own communities.Īfter an introduction to EFF’s approach to student privacy, we turn to our analysis. This paper presents what we have observed and learned about student privacy in the course of our investigation. Since 2015, EFF has been taking a closer look at whether and how educational technology (or “ed tech”) companies are protecting students’ privacy and their data.

In short, technology providers are spying on students-and school districts, which often provide inadequate privacy policies or no privacy policy at all, are unwittingly helping them do it. All of this often happens without the awareness or consent of students and their families. Some programs upload this student data to the cloud automatically and by default. This privacy-implicating information goes beyond personally identifying information (PII) like name and date of birth, and can include browsing history, search terms, location data, contact lists, and behavioral information. 4 Throughout EFF’s investigation over the past two years, we have found that educational technology services often collect far more information on kids than is necessary and store this information indefinitely.

However, they come with real costs and unresolved ethical questions. Student laptops and educational services are often available for a steeply reduced price, and are sometimes even free. 2 Across the U.S., more than 30 million students, teachers, and administrators use Google’s G Suite for Education (formerly known as Google Apps for Education), and that number is rapidly growing. 1 Google Chromebooks account for about half of those machines. Students are using technology in the classroom at an unprecedented rate. As students across the United States are handed school-issued laptops and signed up for educational cloud services, the way the educational system treats the privacy of students is undergoing profound changes-often without their parents’ notice or consent, and usually without a real choice to opt out of privacy-invading technology. Students and their families are backed into a corner. By Frida Alim, Nate Cardozo, Gennie Gebhart, Karen Gullo,ĭownload the report as a PDF.

Istation download chrome