Digital Smarts - Proposed Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 Circulates

As schools and universities begin outsourcing more of their record keeping tasks, interest in student privacy continues to grow. A Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act bill draft is now being circulated in Congress and many groups including Common Sense Media have spoken out positively about it. Other privacy advocates, though, say that it does not go far enough in putting restrictions on companies that deal with student data. Their concerns center on security, including how long data can be stored, who can access it, and who will be informed when there is a data breach. They also worry about commercialization of the information, but it is the child’s reputation that concerns them the most. Information stored about a child including mistakes, learning  and disciplinary issues, quirky teacher comments, and more mean that a student’s “permanent record” at school could go on to haunt them in some way for the rest of their educational careers. It is feared that student data could start to wield reputational power similar to what a bad credit record does for adults: It could limit a person’s ability to get a job, not just access to credit. As one critic put it, “There are harms that can happen regardless of intent."