The First National Model Student Data Privacy Agreement Launches

Tyler Park reports:

Protections for student data privacy took an important step forward this summer when the Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) released the first model National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) for school districts to use with their technology service providers. Ever since education technology (edtech) emerged as a key tool in classrooms, both schools and edtech companies have struggled to create data privacy agreements (DPAs) that adequately protect student data and meet both schools’ and providers’ needs. DPAs provide crucial protections for student data by limiting its use and sharing. A key challenge in that process is that US federal student privacy law and many state laws require specific contractual clauses or protections. The new NDPA addresses this challenge by streamlining the education contracting process and, in the SDPC’s words, establishing “common expectations between schools/districts and marketplace providers.”