Guest Post by
As a new parent, the idea of sending my children to public school is a frightening thought. The more you read, the more you realize the importance of extreme vigilance when it comes to what’s happening at whatever place you send your kids to for majority of their day. Quite often, parents are simply left completely in the dark about some very important matters.
One such example relates to Google’s penetration of the U.S. public school system, and how the company employs a loophole in order to collect data on children. Google achieves this by referring to itself as a “school official” under the law. I truly wish I was making this up.
From the Washington Post:
Google is a major player in U.S. education. In fact, in many public schools around the country, it’s technically a “school official.” And that designation means parents may not get a chance to opt out of having information about their children shared with the online advertising giant.
The combined allure of Google’s free suite of productivity tools and cheap laptops that use the company’s Web-based ChromeOS operating system have made Google’s products a popular choice at schools around the country. And the company’s growing dominance is raising concern from some privacy advocates who allege it is using some student data for its own benefit.
Google’s standard agreement for providing its education suite defines the company as a “school official” for the purpose of that student privacy law. In Google’s case, the company is providing software that districts might otherwise have to develop or support themselves, such as email services or tools that help students digitally collaborate on assignments.
But schools are supposed to have “direct control” of how a company or individual uses and maintains education records to deem them a “school official,” according to the department’s regulation. Khaliah Barnes, an associate director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center or EPIC, argues that isn’t happening with many ed tech providers, including Google.
“The schools don’t have access to Google’s servers or a lot of the way that it uses the information because it is proprietary,” she said. In 2012, EPIC brought a lawsuit against the Education Department in an attempt to stop the government from interpreting the law in ways it argued could allow schools to share more data about students with less explicit consent, but the case was later dismissed on standing grounds.
Why am I not surprised in the least.
Today, Google and many other tech companies are increasingly part of students’ daily classroom lives under the “school official” designation. And that leaves parents in the dark about who has access to an increasingly large cache of information about their children and may compromise their privacy down the line, experts say. But as previously reported, Google said it has “always been firmly committed to keeping student information private and secure.”
Private and secure, ok, but they are still collecting this data aren’t they? They are still essentially tracking the activity of little children without their consent or parental consent, are they not?
Even 20 years ago, parents really didn’t expect schools to track more than basic information about their children’s school performance — things like attendance and test scores. But the latest generation of educational tech products are cataloging a nearly limitless amount of data on what students do everyday — from emails and chats, to metadata, such as location history, that educators may not even realize is being collected, Barnes said.
“The companies themselves aren’t transparent, and often times schools even aren’t aware of the extent of data collection,” Barnes said.
“School districts are just generally not providing notice to parents,” said Reidenberg.
You’ve been warned.
For related articles, see:
Privacy Advocates Raise Alarm Over Snapchat’s Updated Terms of Service – Calling it “Scary”
Facebook Caught Secretly Lobbying for Privacy Destroying “Cyber Security” Bill
Apple Directors Overrule and Reject Shareholder Proposal to Protect User Privacy
A Very Disturbing and Powerful Post – “Get Your Loved Ones Off Facebook”
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
I wish Jesus would return and smash the Banksters Big Brother NWO NSA tables!
If you love your children, you don’t put the in public schools.
Anon, I would give you thirty plus thumbs for that ass-biting bit of truism , but Herr Stuckmester might be watching …..so a +1000 to you.
I am with anon,
I was too selfish and wimpy to home-school. I “had” to work
because the insurance there was great and priced right.
Opted instead for the “best” school system in the area…and
people would pay extra (bids) on a house for that school district.
One boy did well. The other boy not so much. That was then. Now?
It bears repeating, “if you love your children, you don’t put them in
the public schools.” I tried the one child in parochial school–6.5K/yr.
Not that much better. Moms, stay home and be there, and in the school (helping),
at the least. Or, teach them yourself and contract out for music, or whatever.
Thank you, the end.
I was the wimpy one.
I’ve been dogging kreiger lately, but he is right on the money here. Google, or anybody else, should be absolutely prohibited from assembling dossiers of information on your children
Its not just at school but also their phones and tablets that the parents bought for kids and also use, that collect data. Download an app from google and it wants access to your sd card, to your camera, your location and the ability to delete things on that dvice.
Our future as members of an Ant Colony…
Nature abhors a vacuum. If parents aren’t going to be involved in their children’s lives, govt and corporate interests will always be more than happy to step up!
FORWARD!!
They will soon figure out how to get homeschools and private schools in their grip, just you watch.
Google=NSA. As Admin will attest, they’re evil.
Here is some more bullshit. There was a guy waiting at my gate today. He had a badge, u.s. census, told me I was required to sit for a 40 minute interview. Didn’t know there was a census in 2015. I told him I had somewhere to be, his bet would be to go fuck a duck, and if he came back, he was going to need to bring the person who could enforce this. To be continued. WTF?
OK, but make it quick because I’m on my way to the Atlanta CDC because I’m a Research Pathologist and was just accidentally exposed to the live Ebola virus.
rhs jr.
perfect!!
Starfcker, tell them you’re an illegal alien, here for the free benefits, and feeling just a little twitchy – ALLAHU ACKBAR!
I suspect you’ll be left to your own devices from then on!