Imagine you send your child to school and the information you complete in order for the school to enroll your child is used to track their habits and build a profile on them that allows marketers to target them, not now, but in the future. Would you feel invaded and uncomfortable? There are risks.
For schools, protecting student data is about so much more than compliance. Of bigger concern for parents is what might happen to data outside the school should the school not have sufficient security.
Targeted Marketing. While it is ethical for schools to collect a student’s personally identifiable information (PII) in order to meet the student’s educational needs, there are now companies whose only goal is to collect data on children to begin building a marketing profile on them.
Identity Theft. One of the biggest reasons that schools are a target for cybercrime is that there is a wealth of information contained within the records the schools hold. PII can be used to steal the identity of a child who may not even be monitoring credit yet, only to be dealing with the ramifications of the crime years later.
Bullying/Harassment. Student data in the wrong hands can lead to danger for the student, including targeted harassment based on their gender, identity, and other information. In one instance in 2017, a hacker group released information about students and their parents which resulted in threats of harm to the families.
What Can Parents Do to Protect Their Children?
Using FERPA, parents can opt out of public disclosure of directory information. Even if your school doesn’t disclose FERPA policies or provide you with an opt-out form, it is still within your legal right to request this. Another way parents can take action is to insist that schools institute a trusted digital engagement hub that is designed to protect student data and minimize the risk of data being exposed.
Ask Your School to Use School Passport
School Passport is the first of its kind school-centric trusted digital engagement hub that empowers schools to centrally:
- Govern the exchange of student, staff, and parent PII data with SaaS vendors.
- Approve and publish apps to a district or school branded on-demand AppStore.
- Delegate to school staff and teachers the ability to activate apps within their managed groups on-demand.
The School Passport 2.0 API enables ubiquitous access to all apps from within any LMS, SIS, or any pre-existing enterprise portal, while leveraging GG4L ID as anonymized, secure and federated access credentials for all end-users. These features of School Passport are free so there’s no reason why your child’s school shouldn’t use it. Learn more.
