One of the top privacy stories of 2013 should be the fact that parents and school districts are joining forces in some areas to protect student privacy against massive data collection and data mining.
Today’s example:
Citing major concerns regarding the program’s handling of student data and overall lack of accountability and diligence in protecting students’ rights to privacy, the Croton-Harmon Board of Education has withdrawn the district’s participation in the federal government’s Race to the Top grant-in-aid initiative.
[…]
“We do not want the data being used to result in misleading individual student profiles. We do not want our students to be used to develop products. We do not want to find out that a third-grader’s identity was stolen when that student becomes a young adult,” said Ms. Zevin, a professional market researcher and data analyst who criticized the pitfalls in the program’s storage and usage of data, as well as problems with the integrity in collection and how data costs are being shifted to local districts. “The state must fully consider the wide-sweeping consequences of identity theft, which not only include stealing someone’s money or assets, but also a person’s good name and reputation.”
Read more on Ossining-Croton-on-Hudson Patch.