Fordham CLIP’s report on student data privacy was featured in The Journal.
Student information has become fair game for data brokers, which don’t adhere to any protective measures currently in place, according to a new study by Fordham University’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP). As “Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data” reported, lists of student information are widely available for purchase “on the basis of ethnicity, affluence, religion, lifestyle, awkwardness and even a perceived or predicted need for family planning services.” Those who trade in student information are governed under no federal privacy law.
As a summary of the report by Future of Privacy Forum explained, data brokers buy and sell information about people culled from “a wide variety of sources,” including public records and commercial sources. That data can be cross-referenced with other data for all kinds of marketing purposes, such as identifying families with children who are about to head back to school or graduate.
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School districts queried by the researchers denied selling directory information, other than to military branches and other educational organizations. And after years of research, the report acknowledged, “Fordham CLIP was largely unable to discover data sources.” Researchers concluded that student information available in the commercial marketplace suffers from a “lack of transparency.”