From PIRG:
Last week, the Florida state legislature passed a new student privacy bill – the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act – in an effort to bolster student data privacy protections at school.
How does the Florida student privacy bill protect kids?
Many sites and apps students use for school include secretive technology that harvests student data and sells it to third parties. A 2022 study by Human Rights Watch found that 90% of educational apps do just this – turning a tool for learning into a tool for exploiting minors’ information for commercial gain, usually unbeknownst to students, teachers and parents alike.
Florida’s bill bans educational platforms from gathering any more information from students than is reasonably necessary to deliver the primary service of being a learning tool. It also bans companies from using student data for any non-educational purposes. This means student data cannot be sold to third parties or used for targeted advertising.
Read more at PIRG.