“Secret ‘Fusion Centers’ and the Search for the Next School Shooter” via EdSurge

EdSurge has published an article detailing the rise of Fusion Centers and the relationship between those Fusion Centers and student privacy.

The article quotes Amelia Vance, the director of education policy at the Future of Privacy Forum, “To be clear we are talking about the government actively seeking out children’s social media accounts, both public and private, and combining this information with existing law enforcement or social services records to profile which students are threats… Privacy guardrails must be drawn so parents and students can be sure their rights are protected.”

Should society expect there to be a balance between giving up privacy and identifying threats? Or, is the cost of student privacy too high of a price to identify potential threats?

The article references the story of an autistic teen who dropped out of school after being identified as a threat. He was subject to increased surveillance and monitoring, and officials would not explain to him why we was a threat.

Should society accept the fact that some students may be incorrectly identified as a threat and face lifelong harms as a result of that misidentification? Is that an acceptable tradeoff for potential security gains?

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California Passes New Privacy Law

California’s new privacy law is the most comprehensive in the nation. It gives Californian’s the right to see what information has been collected about them, to whom it has been disclosed, and gives them the right to request information be permanently deleted.

Wired Article

New York Times Article

L.A. Times Article

How and Why Ed Tech Companies are Tracking Student Feelings

Here is the link to a recent article about how ed tech is progressing Social Emotional Learning. It covers some of the positive and negative aspects of this emerging movement. As with any new technology, it is important to balance the potential gains with any costs, and privacy is a huge cost to weigh.

Fordham University Publishes Article About the Marketplace for Student Data

Fordham University’s Center on Law and Information Policy released a study, “Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data“, about the marketplace for student data. They recommend that data marketplaces be transparent, that data brokers should reasonably assure the data they collect is accurate, that parents and emancipated students should be able to opt out of their data being used for commercial purposes, and that surveys should be monitored for compliance with the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.