Digital Smarts - President Announces Proposals to Improve Data Privacy for Consumers and Students

The President recently announced a fleet of proposals aimed at improving the data privacy of U.S. consumers and students. Several proposals are outlined, aiming at tackling identity theft, safeguarding student data, protecting customer information and improving consumer confidence online. Under the proposed Personal Data Notification & Protection Act, companies would be obligated to notify customers within 30 days of discovering a breach that exposed their personal information. While creating a national standard could certainly help some areas, privacy advocates have expressed concern that it might include language to overrule stronger state level regulations like those in California.

For students, the President has offered The Student Digital Privacy Act, modeled on a similar California statue that would prevent companies from selling student data to third party vendors for purposes unrelated to education, while still allowing research to help improve student learning outcomes. The Department of Education is also being tasked with creating teacher training assistance that will help ensure educational data is used appropriately and will target students who need added learning assistance. Many parents, however, are still concerned about what information is being collected about their children and how those details will be used to categorize or rank students. They want districts and companies to describe the different treatment students might receive based on those rankings or categorizations.