Joel Reidenberg, the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair in Law and Founder and Director of the Center on Law and Information Policy, testified at a hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy” on Thursday, February 12, 2015. The hearing was held by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.
Professor Reidenberg’s testimony focused on the need to modernize federal educational privacy law to meet the challenges of today’s educational technologies, as well as make recommendations that Congress modernize the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974.
Prior to Professor Reidenberg’s testimony, CLIP published the Privacy Handbook for Student Information Online: A Toolkit for Schools and Parents, which is designed to provide materials that offer tools for school administrators, teachers, and parents so that they can better understand and address online privacy protections and legal requirements.
School districts across the country rely on online service providers and technology companies to improve education and facilitate school administrative functions. These services typically involve the transfer of student information to third-party commercial organizations and raise significant privacy concerns for student information. CLIP conducted a research study titled “Privacy and Cloud Computing in Public Schools,” which showed that major gaps exist in the protection of student privacy for many of the services used by schools.
“The study identified that school districts have a tremendous need for assistance in addressing privacy and called for the development of a national clearinghouse and research center to develop and distribute materials for schools to be able to use free of charge,” said Reidenberg.
Under the direction of Professor Reidenberg, the Technology and Privacy Law Practicum course at Fordham Law School prepared this set of materials to assist school communities in addressing online privacy issues.
The Privacy Handbook consists of a complete binder in PDF format and each tool as a stand-alone file, including the slides for the professional development presentations. All files may be downloaded and used free of charge by school communities. Any commercial uses will require prior written permission from the tool authors.