Student Privacy Legislative Update—April 30, 2015

What a week! As expected, Reps. Luke Messer (R-IN) and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced their updated Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015. In addition, a coalition of 18 education organizations has released a paper on the federal role in safeguarding student data. Meanwhile, discussions about FERPA, opt-out, and more continue at breakneck speed. Details on all of this and more below.

Federal Update

Reps. Messer and Polis introduced their finalized Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015 (SDPPRA) Wednesday with widespread support from educator groups:

• 11 education organizations including AASA, AFT, National PTA and ISTE signed a letter of support for the bill.
  • Education organizations including the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) have put out statements on the bill, but Microsoft has been the only company so far to publicly come out in favor of it.
  • Industry has communicated to us that they generally support the provisions but are concerned that without a federal preemption provision, states will continue to legislate and confuse the marketplace further.

DQC has some resources related to the Messer-Polis bill and how it does and does not relate to FERPA and the Kline-Scott FERPA discussion draft.

• NASBE has written a policy brief, A Tale of Two Federal Student Data Privacy Bills, describing the approaches and differences of the Messer-Polis bill and the Kline-Scott FERPA discussion draft.
• On behalf of DQC and the Future of Privacy Forum, Foresight Law + Policy has produced a table comparing the key provisions of FERPA, the Kline-Scott FERPA discussion draft, and the Messer-Polis SDPPRA.

On Tuesday, a coalition of 18 education organizations, including DQC and several who are supporting SDPPRA, released The Federal Role in Safeguarding Student Data. The paper articulates three areas for potential federal action:

1. Ensure that federal laws provide a strong foundation to protect student information in a constantly changing and increasingly digital school environment.
2. Ensure that the federal government coordinates across agencies to provide clarity to those on the ground as to how privacy laws work together.
3. Support state and local capacity to safeguard data.

• As one of the signatories, DQC released a statement on the paper.

In case you missed it, 27 participants in the Postsecondary Data Collaborative (PostsecData), a coalition of organizations committed to high-quality postsecondary data, offered feedback on the Federal Postsecondary Data Transparency and Consumer Information white paper released by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee. The memo outlined seven recommendations, including a call to lift the ban on the ability of the federal government to create a postsecondary student unit record system, and urged the committee to support the creation of such a system to better answer the myriad questions that stakeholders have about postsecondary outcomes.

• Leonie Haimson’s Parent Coalition for Student Privacy/Student Privacy Matters group expressed significant concerns in their own comments to the committee about the privacy implications of calls to lift the ban on student unit records at the postsecondary level.
• The HELP Committee will likely address some of these issues during a hearing on Higher Education Act reauthorization scheduled for May 6.

Common Sense Media is becoming an increasingly key player in many of the ongoing student data privacy conversations. The New York Times recently featured two articles, Franchising a Student Digital Privacy Law and Turning a Children’s Rating System Into an Advocacy Army, on the work of this emerging voice.

State Update

Perhaps waiting to see what’s next at the federal level, there has been relatively little legislative activity in the states despite the large number of pending bills. There have been only a few new student data privacy bills introduced since my last update—we’re now tracking 174 bills in 44 states—although there are two new laws, bringing the total to 10 laws in 4 states.

Here are quick summaries of the two new laws:

• North Dakota SB 2326 requires data sharing approval by the school board and implements data governance, transparency, and supports including data use training.
• Virginia HB 1612 is based on Microsoft’s model based on the Student Privacy Pledge and prohibits online service providers from using student data for commercial or secondary purposes while allowing service innovation and improvement.

Many states have several weeks or months remaining in their legislative sessions, so there could still be more state excitement to come.