Schools increasingly rely on edtech vendors to enhance the learning experience. However, with this reliance comes the paramount responsibility of safeguarding student data. To address this concern, schools and edtech vendors engage in Data Privacy Agreements (DPAs), establishing a framework for secure data exchange.
What Are Data Privacy Agreements?
Data Privacy Agreements serve as a crucial bridge between schools and edtech vendors, outlining the terms and conditions for handling student data responsibly. These agreements are designed to ensure that vendors comply with the stringent data protection regulations that educational institutions are bound by. The primary goal is to strike a balance between leveraging the benefits of educational technology and safeguarding the privacy and security of student information.
“One of the benefits of having a DPA with a vendor that is a 1EdTech trusted app is that I can find out about their compliance and other areas, not just what they’re telling me they’re going do in their agreement with me. That can be very helpful. As the industry grows, I think working hand in hand with 1EdTech and GG4L is going to be very powerful for us.” – Leo Brehm, CTO at Taunton Public Schools
Key Components of DPAs
DPAs outline specific obligations for securing student data.
Compliance Standards
DPAs clearly delineate the specific compliance standards that EdTech vendors must meet. These standards often include regulations such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in the United States or the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. By adhering to these standards, vendors demonstrate their commitment to protecting sensitive student data.
Data Usage Restrictions
The agreement outlines the permissible uses of student data, restricting vendors from utilizing the information for purposes beyond the scope of educational enhancement. This helps mitigate the risk of unauthorized data access or misuse, ensuring that student information remains solely within the educational context.
Security Measures
DPAs specify the security measures that EdTech vendors must implement to safeguard student data. This includes encryption protocols, secure storage methods, and measures to prevent data breaches. By establishing these security standards, schools can trust that their students’ information is handled with the utmost care.
Data Ownership and Retention
Clarity on data ownership and retention is a crucial aspect of DPAs. Schools must be aware of who owns the student data and for how long it will be retained. This transparency ensures that schools maintain control over their students’ information and that data is not retained beyond necessary periods.
Breach Notification Procedures
In the unfortunate event of a data breach, DPAs outline the procedures that EdTech vendors must follow to promptly notify the school. This proactive approach allows schools to take immediate action, mitigating potential risks and protecting the affected students.
Benefits of DPAs
Having a DPA – a data privacy agreement – with edtech vendors is a necessary protection for K-12 schools. DPAs offer a variety of benefits, but as the industry grows, DPAs only scratch the surface of what K-12 schools can do to protect student data. It’s time to move away from traditional rostering to a secure data exchange with anonymized data. DPAs are a good starting point for protecting student data.
Legal Compliance
DPAs help schools demonstrate legal compliance with data protection regulations. This is increasingly important as educational institutions face growing scrutiny regarding their handling of student data.
Trust Building
By establishing clear guidelines for data protection, DPAs contribute to building trust between schools and EdTech vendors. This trust is fundamental to fostering long-term partnerships and ensuring the continued adoption of innovative educational technologies.
Risk Mitigation
DPAs serve as a proactive measure to mitigate the risks associated with data breaches or misuse. Schools can be confident that vendors are committed to upholding stringent security standards, reducing the likelihood of compromising sensitive student information.
DPAs + 1EdTech + GG4L PII Monitor = Powerful Student Data Protection
Managing data protection agreements with each individual edtech vendor can be a nightmarish time strain for schools. By working with vendors that have been vetted by 1EdTech and then using GG4L’s PII Data Governance Console so that school IT leaders have a dashboard on which they can see what edtech vendors have access to what information and where that data is going can eliminate the frustration and headache while adding significant visibility.
School Passport PII Monitoring
School Passport’s PII monitoring includes usage dashboards and reports that empower school leaders to take action with our platform’s data governance console. Our console categorizes and prioritizes the PII risks according to custom rules configured during the rollout of School Passport in your school district and makes it clear which vendors have received trusted apps status from 1EdTech. We offer a robust API framework for vendors to implement that allows vendors to create accounts for users, manage authentication and logins, create personalized experiences, communicate with users, and other more complex use cases like badging and credential reunification. We invite you to learn more.
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Who Can You Trust to Handle Student Data?
Our recent webinar, “Who can you trust when it comes to handling student data?” digs deep into the conversation on data privacy and the industry challenges that have emerged, including how school districts can effectively provision learning apps accessing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and opportunities for districts and edtech vendors to collaborate on a unified approach toward data anonymization. If you’re concerned about data privacy and how student data is managed, view the replay of the webinar.
