Digital Smarts - Proposed Legislation to Protect Student Data Privacy

Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the US Senate to help protect the privacy of students. Called the “Protecting Student Privacy Act”, this legislation would set limits on how companies collect and use student data and would require companies to:

• Have policies and practices in place to secure student data;
• Keep records of other outside entities that have access to the data they store;
• Destroy personally identifiable data once it is no longer needed; and
• Provide access to student data they hold when requested by a parent;
• Provide a process to challenge, correct, or delete any inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise inappropriate data in any education records

Do you know how your school district handles student data? School districts and the ed tech companies they work with hold large amounts of sensitive data on students, including test scores and disciplinary records. This proposed legislation would help ensure that the data is used appropriately and not compromised.