#4 With Tech Taking Over in Schools, Worries Rise: Summary and Reflection

With the growing use of technology in schools today, some parents are concerned about how technology companies are collecting a vast amount of data about students from kindergarten to high school. These parents are worried that different websites might collect different kinds of information that could be aggregated to create a profile of a student, starting in elementary school. And that sensitive information about a child, like data about learning disabilities, disciplinary problems or family trauma could be disseminated and disclosed, potentially hampering college or career prospects.

Just last month, legislators in the state of California passed a law to comprehensively restrict how such information is exploited by the growing education technology industry; prohibiting educational sites, apps and cloud services used by schools from selling or disclosing personal information about students and from using the children’s data to market to them.

This article explains how parents are worried about their children personal information being exposed and used by public companies. I was unaware that educational sites, apps, and cloud services collect, use, and sell personal data about their users. Now that I am aware, I agree that there needs to be a law put in place in every state to keep technology companies from collecting and disseminating private information.