Today is the international Data Privacy Day. Each year for the past few years, this site has announced events and resources during the month of January. For this year, I had been working on some research affecting student privacy. As part of that research, I had filed requests under freedom of information laws and reviewed…
Category: Youth & Schools
MO: Parkway School District shelves fitness monitors
Cynthia Billhartz Gregorian reports: The Parkway School District is taking away activity monitors given to elementary pupils for physical education classes due to a national controversy over privacy issues. The 75 Polar Active devices, which are worn on the wrist and cost $90 each, were distributed last year to third-, fourth- and fifth-grade pupils at…
UK: Use of CCTV in Welsh schools: FOI request shows lack of compliance with fair processing and FOI
It may have sneaked under the radar in and around Xmas but an FOI request in Wales to schools produced some alarming stats. There are at least 2,840 cameras in schools across Wales, one school in Cardiff has 40 cameras for around 190 pupils. Just over a third of all the schools in Wales responded…
Norway: Recruiting agency scandal hits papers
There’s a situation in Norway that seems somewhat parallel to a situation in the U.S. whereby some student information is considered “directory information” and schools may disclose it without student consent. Staffing Industry Analysts reports: Norwegian papers have extensively covered a scandal that involves the private employment agency Rekruttering AS, one of Scandinavia’s top…