« Previous Post | Blog Home | Next Post »
Disturbing: Texas schools give kids personal data to private company
Posted on Feb 4, 2008 by Tom Fragala
Came across this article in Dallas Morning News. The article refers to our child privacy tips in talking about a story of Texas schools giving kid's personal identifying information, including SSN, to a contractor, OZ Systems.
But it underscores a privacy issue that everyone should be concerned about: kids personal data is being handed over for the sake of research. What happens to this data and how long will this company have it? What happens if the data is lost or stolen? Who will have access to the data? Are they subject to background checks?
Worth noting that there was no option to opt-out and parents were not informed.
TEA officials said OZ Systems' contract requires the company to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, a federal law that protects student educational records.
OZ Systems executives compare their security levels to that of a bank.
Comparing their security to that of a bank is a red herring and unprovable--how can we know?
Mari McGowan, a McKinney attorney who represents Dallas-area school districts, said releasing student Social Security numbers to OZ probably doesn't break federal privacy laws that require parent consent.
One exemption to FERPA appears to allow schools to send private student information to organizations working on behalf of state education agencies.
Filed under: Identity Theft, Privacy
Comments
Post a Comment