Fordham CLIP’s report on student data privacy was featured in Legaltech News.
As part of a study on the marketplace for student data, researchers at the Fordham Law Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP) called a few different data brokers, looking to see what kinds of limits exist, if any, for the commercial use of student data.
One of the data brokers they called followed up with a voice message, responding presumably to CLIP researchers’ requests for student information. A salesperson from the data broker called back “just wanting to touch base regarding that marketing list you had requested from us. I know that your target audience was fourteen and fifteen [sic]year old girls for family planning services. I can definitely do the list you’re looking for.”
Researchers were startled to find that while they were able to easily purchase this information to sell potential products to this demographic, the 14 and 15 year old girls who were presumed to need family planning services knew very little about what data they were providing to commercial data brokers to make this assumption. Their parents were largely in the dark, too.
CLIP recently published the findings from their study, “Transparency and the Marketplace for Student Data,” and found little transparency for data subjects about how student data is being used commercially. Data brokers advertise lists of students organized for traits from religion to “awkwardness,” yet almost no information exists for students or parents about where data is being collected, how high-level insight is being derived, or what rights they may have to opt-in or out.
“The high level takeaway is that it’s difficult for parents and students to find out much information. There’s a transparency issue,” N. Cameron Russell, an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and lead author of the study, told Legaltech News.