Student Privacy Legislative Update—September 28, 2015

In the weeks since our last update, Congress is back in session; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is headed to conference; the public debate around student privacy legislation is heating up, and several new resources have been released—and the kids are all back in school!

State Update

We are pleased to announce the release of our 2015 roundup of state student data privacy legislation. You can find the paper online here.

A few key takeaways from 2015:

• 46 states introduced 182 bills addressing student data privacy (Breaking: MI introduced two more last week).
• 15 states passed 28 new student data privacy laws.
• States introduced legislation to govern the data use and privacy activities of online service providers (differs from the 2014 trend of legislation governing the data use/collection of states).
  • 25 states introduced legislation modeled on California’s SOPIPA, though many states made alterations to fit their own needs.
  • 31 states introduced legislation that included contract requirements for service providers.
• States introduced legislation to address the capacity and resource needs of districts, especially given the increased data privacy and security responsibilities many districts were charged with last year.

Federal Update

August recess already feels like a distant memory, and Congress is forging ahead. Hold on to your hats!

House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN) has indicated publicly that he’d like to see FERPA addressed in ESEA reauthorization. (Full disclosure: DQC’s letter to ESEA conferees notes that while the federal government plays a critical role in building the foundation for state privacy legislation and policies, ESEA reauthorization is not the right mechanism to amend FERPA.)

Speaking of FERPA: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) introduced draft legislation that would amend FERPA to restrict a lawyer representing a college in litigation with a student from seeing the plaintiff’s medical health records, except in certain circumstances—essentially codifying ED guidance on how post-secondary officials can access and share student medical records. Summary from Politico here.

The public debate over student privacy legislation is heating up. Most recently, Common Sense Media posted a blog denouncing a letter sent by the Software and Information Industry Association to Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) which recommended that any new federal legislation should preempt existing state laws.

New Resources

• Check out DQC’s latest video, "What Is Student Data?" The video is a companion piece to our new infographic of the same title.
• DQC released its roundup of 2015 state legislation, “Student Data Privacy Legislation: What Happened in 2015, and What Is Next?” Check out the State Update section of this email for key takeaways.
• DQC released two factsheets, “10 Things We Would Lose Without Data” and “Why Student Does Data Matter?” Read DQC President and CEO Aimee Guidera’s related blog on what we lose without education data.
• Future of Privacy Forum released the findings of its parent polling in a new report. EdWeek offers a nice overview of the results. Spoiler alert: “overwhelming majorities of parents support schools’ right to collect and use student data for educational purposes.”

In the News

• The New York Times features Clever, a software service that enables schools to more securely share student-level information with various web and mobile apps.
• The Hechinger Report outlines how states are providing more detailed college ratings and publicly reporting post-secondary outcomes data despite the federal government’s continued hesitation to give teeth to the “College Scorecard."