Lois Beckett reports: Parents at a public school district in Maryland have won a major victory for student privacy: tech companies that work with the school district now have to purge the data they have collected on students once a year. Experts say the district’s “Data Deletion Week” may be the first of its kind…
Category: Youth & Schools
Majority of VCU students refuse to participate in Wi-Fi tracking program
Tom Nash reports: Nearly 60 percent of the 4,047 students targeted for a Virginia Commonwealth University Wi-Fi tracking pilot program refused to participate, according to documents released by VCU. The university began tracking attendance through the Wi-Fi on students’ phones and other devices in November after entering a $96,000, one-year agreement with vendor Degree Analytics. VCU is using the…
TikTok settles children’s data lawsuit one day after it was filed; lawsuit alleged COPPA violations
Makena Kelly reports: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, reached a settlement on Wednesday with a group of parents who alleged that the company collected and exposed the data and personal information of minors, in violation of the children’s privacy law. The plaintiff’s lawyer in the case, Gary Klinger, confirmed to The Verge that a proposed settlement of $1.1 million had been…
School boards suspend use of Bill Blair-linked charitable program over privacy concerns
Rachel Gilmore reports: Two Toronto-area school boards have suspended their participation in a charitable program Public Safety Minister Bill Blair helped establish following allegations that children’s personal information wasn’t adequately protected online. The Ontario privacy commissioner is also looking into the charity’s program. The news comes just days after CTVNews.ca reported that parents filed an 85-page formal…