Education

Senators Seek To Improve Student Privacy

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Blake Neff Reporter
Font Size:

A bipartisan group of senators is seeking to update an aging federal law that protects the privacy rights of American students.

The Protecting Student Privacy Act, introduced Wednesday by Democrat Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, aims to safeguard students and parents in an era where more and more data, from test scores to health information, is being moved to the digital realm.

The bill would prohibit companies that hold student data from using identifying information, such as a student’s name, for the purposes of targeted advertising. In addition, it would require that companies holding such data meet security requirements to avoid data leaks. The bill would also expand parental rights, by decreeing that all parents be able to see what information about their children is being made available to third parties.

“This legislation ensures the parents, not private companies, control personal information about their children and that it won’t be sold as a product on the open market,” said Markey.

The law would serve as a limited update to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Action (FERPA), which is starting to show its age, having been passed in 1974 in an era before personal computers and the Internet were commonplace.

In addition to Markey and Hatch, the bill is co-sponsored by Democrat John Walsh of Montana and Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois.

The software industry is not pleased with the bill’s introduction. On Wednesday afternoon, the Software and Information Industry Association, a trade group for software manufacturers, released a statement arguing the legislation was by turns both redundant and impractical.

“The Markey-Hatch legislation is well-intended, but it contains provisions, such as a prohibition against the use of student information for targeted advertising, that already exist in current law and regulation. Other provisions, such as those related to data destruction, might not be workable in practice,” said SIAA vice president of public policy Mark MacCarthy.

Some privacy advocates, however, may find the bill disappointing. The bill continues existing federal law by only applying specifically to students’ educational records, and does nothing to expand what information falls into this category. However, modern computing technology has enabled a vast expansion in the data collected on students, including not just background information such as a student’s health records but also metadata on information such as how long a student takes to complete a particular problem during an online activity. Under FERPA, such information is typically not considered an “educational record,” and therefore would not fall under the purview of the Markey-Hatch bill.

Joel Reidenberg, a law professor who heads Fordham University’s Center on Law and Information Policy, told Congress last month federal oversight should be expanded to a much wider array of student records.

Student data has been a touchy subject in recent months. InBloom, a nonprofit that sought to serve as a warehouse of student data, was forced to shut its doors last April after an uproar from parents over the company’s ability to track personal details such as family relationships and medical conditions. The backlash forced schools around the country to cancel plans to work with the service. In addition, Google recently faced significant criticism when it was discovered the company was mining student email addresses for data.

Follow Blake on Twitter

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel