Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker, parents who fight for student privacy, describe the astonishing amount of data collected about your child without your knowledge. Much of it is personally identifiable information (PII) and much of it can be accessed by outsiders without parental knowledge or consent.
The federal legislation that protects student privacy (FERPA) needs to be updated and strengthened. The US Department of Education weakened the regulations in 2011, dropping needed protections for children’s PII.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What is also problematic is how the Pentagon/military recruiters are able to access students private, personal data via students taking the ASVAB test; obtaining student info from JAMARS (Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies) wherein the Pentagon contracts with companies that sell yearbooks and class rings, etc.; and from Section 9528 of ESEA which says recruiters can gain access to students personal info if they do not OPT out of that section. Most parents/guardians don’t have a clue about these methods that recruiters utilize to send a child personalized messages for recruiting purposes.
LikeLike
One can rest assured of one thing: if the data can be used in some nefarious way, it will be.
People will be denied health insurance, jobs and quite literally “branded” for life by the data collected from their school days. The old saw “it will become part of your permanent record” has finally reached fruition.
It’s not a matter of “if” it occurs, it is a matter of when.
LikeLike
And the Orwellian state will be (is currently being?) brought to you by companies like Pearson and Google, who already possess the mechanisms for acquiring and storing data — and “analyzing” and “sorting” it (and the people it represents)
You can not ensure that data is secure after it is collected.
You have to prevent it’s collection to begin with.
LikeLike
And Fakebook, of course, one of the worst offenders when it comes to data collection.
LikeLike
The February 2018 issue of National Geographic Magazine features “The New Big Brother”
https://press.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/16/national-geographic-magazine-february-2018/february-ngm-highlights-1/
The 1-percent are keeping their eye in the sky on the rest of us. They are watching our e-mails and tracking our daily activity through our smart cars. If you have an old, dumb car without computer chips, you might want to restore and keep it. If you have a smartphone, they can track you through it. Switch to a dumber mobile phone and when you want privacy, turn it off.
If you have any device with a digital camera on it that is linked to the internet, they can take over that camera and watch what you are doing if you are in the range of that lens and if that linked device has electronic ears, it is listening and they can tap into that too.
The more you are linked to the internet, the more ways they have to keep track of everything you do.
LikeLike
“…what could happen if today’s powerful tools fell into the wrong hands.”?
LikeLike
I think those tools are already falling into the wrong hands, repeatedly. The most modern computer chips were designed with the modern big brother in mind but that allows anyone to hack into those computers through a weakness in that design. The only way to fix it is to throw out all the old computers and buy new ones that have chips designed to protect our privacy.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/intel-microsoft-grapple-with-widespread-computer-chip-weakness
LikeLike
They aren’t “falling into the wrong hands”.
They were in the wrong hands to begin with.
Google could have chosen a different business model and (like Duckduckgo and some other search engines) not saved search data, but Larry Page and Sergey Brin quite purposefully chose the route they did because they knew the data would be an endless gold mine.
They don’t give a damn about public privacy and their slogan “Don’t be evil” is just so much hogwash.
LikeLike
Facebook has the largest facial recognition library on the planet.
LikeLike
Fakebook is a fascist’s dream come true.
The East German Stasi could not have envisioned a more powerful surveillance system than the one people < i>willingly give their most private information (about their kids) to every day
LikeLike
To Kill a Privacy Mockingbird
Chapter 3
Loss of Innocence Updated
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch’s teacher, Miss Caroline, offers to lend Scout’s classmate, Walter, a quarter to buy lunch, and when Scout tries to explain that Walter is too poor to pay back the loan, Miss Caroline gets frustrated and punishes Scout. Scout rubs Walter’s face in the dirt for getting her in trouble. That night, her father Atticus Finch helps Scout develop some sympathy for Walter, saying, “You never really understand a person until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
The incident is entered into the P-20 Maycomb County Longitudinal Data System. Walter’s psychological profile is updated to show him having weak character, lacking the grit mindset necessary to merit low interest rates on any future purchases. Poverty becomes his destiny. Scout’s profile now records a history of misbehavior, including violence. She will be denied employment by companies that buy P-20 data for fear she will attack the CEO. Atticus is disbarred from the practice of law due to his close relationships with slackers and criminals. The free market wins. All get what they deserve. It just goes to show you never really understand a person until you get into his data profile and hack around in it.
LikeLike
You mentioned hackers. Hackers can hack into those databases and the trolls among them will ferret out honest, hard-working people who have never been in trouble and make them into monsters by adding fake facts that never happened. Similiar to Donald Trump, hacker trolls enjoy bullying and ruining the reputations and lives of good people and any system can be hacked.
One day you go to bed an honest, hardworking record with no criminal history and the next day you wake up and discover you are a wanted criminal, a serial killer, a child molester, a fraud, etc. because some troll like Trump revised your data set.
LikeLike
I see I made a grammar mistake, “…to merit…” should have been “meriting”.
I use the term ‘hacking’ loosely. Yes, hackers can mine the data, but the companies that provide the websites don’t need to be hacked; they just need to be well connected.
LikeLike
I do not subscribe to the Washington Post. There are other ways to see that the tech industry gives lip service to privacy. The new gold mined on the Internet is data.
Federal restrictions on gathering personal data are likely to be lifted. These restrictions are codified in FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Act), and in the ban in the 2008 Higher Education Act against creating a federal “student unit record data system” think (SS number). The Trump administration has already expanded opportunities for Internet service providers to gather and market. Net neutrality is dead (at least for now).
As an indication of the farce of internet privacy, recall the April 2017 hack of Edmodo, one of the largest “social learning” platforms with personal data on students, their parents and teachers—77 million users with their data for sale on the “dark web.” https://funnymonkey.com/2017/tracking-of-teachers-and-students-in-edmodo
A recent federal workgroup on ID Theft, says: “If you post it they will use it.” https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1255643/bios_student_privacy_and_ed_tech.pdf Federal Trade Commission.
There are many efforts to get personal identity information past regulations. These efforts are increasingly coordinated at the international level. Consider, for example, the UN’s effort to produce “ID2020” a “Unique Identity Service Platform“ that can manage biometric data and biographical data. This kind of service is already in use by the Department of Homeland Security and the European Union Visa Information System.
ID2020 is called a “ Public Private Partnership.” It is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Accenture (aka Arthur Anderson/Enron scandal). It is marketed as a necessity for “children and people at risk from human trafficking, refugee crisis situations and a lack of access to basic services.” Having the ability to verify your “personal identity” is viewed as one aspect of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That rationale for ID2020 is altruistic, but it is also misleading.
Accenture, uses Microsoft AZUREcloud to run its “Unique Identify Service Platform” in order to track transactions on the internet. The inside pitch is: “Every time an individual interacts with a system, we learn something about them.”
Who are the “WE?” Members of the “WE” gang are: Accenture, Autheneq, Bayonet, Bifchain, Blockstack, Calidatedid, Civic, Consent, Danube Tech, Equinix, Evernym, Gern, Hyperledger (a consortium of the Linex Foundation), IBM, IDEO, iota, KeyChain, Meta, Microsoft, Mooti, Netri, NuID, Ockam, r3, RS, Sovrin (a non-profit), Tieron, uPort. https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/accenture-microsoft-create-blockchain-solution-to-support-id2020.htm#search
These international promoters of a Unique Identify Service Platform are organized by their membership in the Decentralized Identity Foundation. Members want ID systems to be standardized, interoperable, and housed in distributed ledgers (blockchain architecture) free of governmental regulation. http://identity.foundation
In theory, blockchain is a new gold standard for Internet security. I say “in theory” because there are profits to be made by the operators of these system and the operators have multiple opportunities and incentives to off-load data from the “nodes” in a distributed ledger, especially if the data lacks tough encryption. Users of the system cannot easily correct errors. Services are being rushed to market as if data circulation and storage on a very large scale will override issues of hacking and compliance with privacy laws (US and EU). https://blog.malwarebytes.com/security-world/technology/2017/12/blockchain-technology-not-just-for-cryptocurrency/
Meanwhile, two interrelated system of standardizing the personal information of students, their parents, teachers, and others are under development.
In the US, the major system is known as CEDS for Common Education Data Standards. CEDS a project of the Department of Education. It is a computer coding system for over 1,700 data points bearing on education, beginning in early childhood. The system includes data about elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education, adult education, and workforce performance. The system is one step away from being used much like a Google or Bing search engine, with opportunities to create networks of information similar Facebook, or with data configured for targeted recommendations like ads can be selectively targeted on Amazon. In other words, CEDS is designed to support machine readable data mining of the kind required for adaptive testing, so-called personalized learning, “recommendation systems for teachers, and more. https://ceds.ed.gov/domainEntitySchema.aspx
The international counterpart for CEDS is under development by IMS Global Learning Consortium (IMS GLC) “a nonprofit, member organization that strives to enable the growth and impact of learning technology in the education and corporate sectors worldwide.” In 1995, IMS was called the Instructional Management System project. Back then it operated under the umbrella of EDUCAUSE.
The IMS Global Consortium sponsors the “Competencies & Academic Standards Exchange™ intended to produce “the machine readable standards” required for artificial intelligence systems, especially to align assessment, standards, curriculum, and resources.
IMS Global and CEDS are cooperating in this instructional management work, and the work is international in scope. In other words investors in tech want to operate on a global stage with few regulations and with “standards” for data interoperability so that, for example, there are fewer hurdles in creating new markets for products and services and with varied devices and delivery systems, including mobile.
IMS Global is funded by members, including non-profits and about 180 vendors. Among the the well-known members in the United States are Pearson, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Mozilla, Oracle, McGraw-Hill, and Macmillan. Additional supporters include many universities and community colleges here and elsewhere that are converting to online courses, along with state departments of education and school districts with plans to expand tech-delivery of education.
Testing companies are members of IMS Global, including ACT, PARCC, SMARTER, and ETS. Many foundations are supporting this standardization of data. The most conspicuous are those of Bill and Melinda Gates and Lunima (started from a $1 Billion student loan sale to Sallie Mae).
IMF Global also has members representing tech alliances and agencies from Japan, the Netherlands, the EU, UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Spain. https://www.imsglobal.org/sites/default/files/developers/case/CASE%20presentation.pdf
Readers of this blog are aware of acronym GERM for Global Education Reform Movement. Explore these links to see who the players are and what they hope to do with all of the data generated by tech-friendly educators.
LikeLike