Two policy debates that could have a significant impact on education – updates on FERPA and data privacy & FCC proposals on Net Neutrality – both entered the next stage this week.
FERPA Modernization
I recently wrote about the new federal moves to update FERPA to handle the age of Big Data (should I have used scare quotes there?).
Yesterday the White House released its report on big data and privacy implications. The focus was broadly on big data, but there will be implications for ed tech, with several key recommendations specifically focused on the education sector. Specifically, there will be a push to update and revise the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, enacted in 1974) and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, enacted in 2000).
I was quite optimistic about the federal approach based on this report, and yesterday we got some more apparently good news – a bipartisan approach to improve data privacy and update FERPA made in a reasonable fashion (dogs and cats, living together). As reported by THE Journal, Senators Markey (D-MA) and Hatch (R-UT) introduced the “Protecting Student Privacy Act”, getting even a warm reception from the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), which had objected to the earlier version discussed in January. THE Journal summarized the key parts of the legislation (full text here): (more…)