Internet Privacy in Education

We are living in a time where college students admittedly spend 9.5 hours on internet-connect devices which translates into a huge amount of metadata being gathered from users daily.  Data collection is a driving force for businesses as marketing of products and services to target audiences such as students as well as the target of spam mail and pop-up ads.  Yet, students continue to be oblivious to the fact that while using devices connected to a schools' network or otherwise, their behavior is being tracked and data is being gathered.

As school leaders, it is our legal and ethical responsibility to provide an infrastructure that will safeguard students accessing the internet on the district's network.  CIPA requires that school districts develop an internet safety plan addressing the unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal identification information regarding minors.  Actions that violate the privacy of students include posting students' names, classwork, and pictures on a school website.  School districts must determine the level of student information disclosure that is considered safe and appropriate coinciding with the instructional goals for students.  Under COPPA, teachers can act in lieu of parents to grant permission for children under the age of 13 to provide personal information to commercial websites.  The Student Privacy Protection Act, included as part of an amendment to ESEA in 2015, will further protect the disclosure of students personal information.  School districts should establish and implement privacy policies to ensure no collection, analysis, or sale of individual or aggregated student use for market research purposes should be permitted.  

Students must be taught that everything moving through the internet is public and no one should use the internet with the expectation of privacy.  Additionally, Internet education should be taught to students in elementary school in order to build a solid foundation for safe and secure internet use.