Politico delves into the spread of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and the rising concerns about student privacy because of loopholes in federal privacy law. As more secondary schools use MOOCs to aid in Advanced Placement courses or earn certificates for college-level courses, for example, more data is collected, including everything from personally identifiable information to learning styles and grades. With little guidance from the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), privacy advocates, parents and some lawmakers worry there are few protections for such sensitive data. Intel’s David Hoffman, CIPP/US, said FERPA is “hopelessly out of date” and he suspects start-ups working in this field would not be able to answer essential questions, such as, “Who is your chief privacy officer?”
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