Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo announced a settlement that stops the software company Echometrix from gathering information from children’s private online conversations and offering it to paying marketers. EPIC had complained to the FTC about Echometrix last year and the Dept. of Defense had subsequently canceled its contract with Echometrix in light of the complaint….
Category: Youth & Schools
ACLU-PA settles cell phone search suit against school district
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania announced today that it has settled a lawsuit filed in May alleging that the Tunkhannock Area School District (Wyoming County) illegally searched a student’s cell phone, punished her for storing semi-nude pictures of herself on the device, and then referred her case for criminal prosecution to the district…
ACLU-NC and EFF Call for Answers About Federal Program Tracking Preschoolers
The ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are calling for answers to critical privacy and safety questions that loom over a controversial federal program to track preschoolers with radio frequency identification (RFID) chips at George Miller III Head Start program in Richmond, California. In an open letter to the U.S….
UK: More people recognizing the down side of surveilling students
It is encouraging to see so many people starting to challenge the extensive use of surveillance in schools. Gavin Atchison reports: Half of York’s secondary schools have been filming pupils on CCTV without telling parents, sparking condemnation from privacy campaigners. An investigation by The Press has found that while all ten secondaries in the city…