To: Sachem Central School District, The New York State House, The New York State Senate, and Governor Andrew Cuomo
Protect The Privacy of Children!
Our schools, state representatives, and federal representatives must step up to their responsibility to protect our children's private information and STOP all intentions of uploading this sensitive data to the inBloom database.
Why is this important?
THIS PETITION WILL BE PRESENTED TO EVERY NEW YORK REPRESENTATIVE AND EVERY SCHOOL DISTRICT IN NEW YORK WHO HAS NOT TAKEN STEPS TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN’S PRIVACY.
We, the undersigned concerned citizens, have taken the step of writing this open appeal for action to all of our elected representatives (federal – state – municipal) because our children are our future, they are not a commodity to be used and sold to corporations and private investors.
When public education accepts private funding, there is a price tag and that price tag is called influence.
The impending collection of personally identifiable student information by school districts, its storage on corporate Internet accessible data cloud servers, particularly its transfer by the state education department to inBloom, Inc. and its various corporate partners without parental/student knowledge, permission or review, violates the letter and intent of The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA).
The Electronic Privacy Information Center brought an action against the Department of Education. U.S. Representative John Kline, Chairman of the House Committee on Education, rebuked the action and requested that Education Secretary Arne Duncan not proceed with the revisions but instead work with the Congress to remove impediments to effective education through legislation. The Department of Education failed to do so. On October 23, 2013, U.S. Senator Edward Markey wrote Education Secretary Duncan seeking explanations for the purpose and potential implications of the revisions. The critical questions posed in the civil action and congressional queries remain unanswered.
The Department of Education guidance regarding State Longitudinal Data Systems contains the suggestion that states collect sensitive personal information including: (QUOTE) “political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent; mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family, sex behavior or attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behaviour; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships; legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers; religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent; or income.”
The U.S. Department of Education and inBloom insist that the individual states and school districts determine what data is collected and to whom it is provided. The State DOE and the school district have yet to provide a comprehensive list of data points collected or of the entities that it will be provided to. The NY State DOE is unable to specify what information will be made available to for-profit corporations for data mining, marketing and advertising purposes.
The Sachem Central School District engaged college prep website service NAVIANCE by Hobsons, owned by DMGT, and AMPLIFY (formerly Wireless Generation), a Wi-Fi enabled tablet provider, owned by Rupert Murdoch (News Corp). So, who is NAVIANCE? The following excerpts
from DMGT’s 2013 corporate brochure are instructive:
(QUOTED from their website)
Data, especially big data, is becoming far more valuable. Businesses are hungry for contextualized information
Applications connect with social networking services as a matter of course
And it’s a two-way street. More and more businesses want to provide valuable services to customers to win their loyalty and mine their data
NAVIANCE encourages school districts to link social media services to the family page to drive student activity through their service. AMPLIFY’s tablets are pre-loaded with Google applications and entertainment applications. Google’s data mining is renowned. Its revelation in August that users have no expectation of confidentiality of information when using their services is sobering. DMGT’s Chief Executive acknowledged the need to develop hybrid clouds to assuage the sensitive data security concerns of the insurance industry to secure their business and Jeff Bezos of Amazon is building a private Cloud for the CIA. So how can their systems be secure enough for our children’s most personal and sensitive data? The recently disclosed Sachem Central School District data system breaches resulted in the compromise of personally identifiable student information and illuminated the nature of the risk.
Childhood is the age of exploration. Indiscretion and mischief are functions of exploration. The effort to digitize and record every youthful activity and communication in perpetuity and share it with third parties is pernicious. Imagine if every one of your youthful indiscretions had been recorded and potentially made available to recruiters, admissions personnel and prospective employers. Might your life have turned out differently?
Corporations refer to data as the new oil. Apart from the venality of offering up children to corporate data miners, the unprecedented aggregation of such sensitive personally identifiable information exposes children to exploitation by untold number of bad actors into whose hands the data might fall (pedophiles, extortionists, rival peers, etc.). Childhood is also a period of considerable fragility. The incidence of cyber-bullying and resultant suicides is troubling. Responsible policy anticipates and mitigates such risks.
Every other state that contracted with inBloom has honored the concerns of parents, acknowledged the gravity of privacy concerns and cancelled their engagement. New York is the only state that is moving forward in spite of the concerns of its citizens and the surfeit of unanswered questions. More than 120 New York School Districts have opted out of Race to the Top yet Sachem Central School District remains enrolled, expanded the NAVIANCE “college prep” service from high schools to the middle schools and intends to issue News Corp owned Google loaded Wi-F...
We, the undersigned concerned citizens, have taken the step of writing this open appeal for action to all of our elected representatives (federal – state – municipal) because our children are our future, they are not a commodity to be used and sold to corporations and private investors.
When public education accepts private funding, there is a price tag and that price tag is called influence.
The impending collection of personally identifiable student information by school districts, its storage on corporate Internet accessible data cloud servers, particularly its transfer by the state education department to inBloom, Inc. and its various corporate partners without parental/student knowledge, permission or review, violates the letter and intent of The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA).
The Electronic Privacy Information Center brought an action against the Department of Education. U.S. Representative John Kline, Chairman of the House Committee on Education, rebuked the action and requested that Education Secretary Arne Duncan not proceed with the revisions but instead work with the Congress to remove impediments to effective education through legislation. The Department of Education failed to do so. On October 23, 2013, U.S. Senator Edward Markey wrote Education Secretary Duncan seeking explanations for the purpose and potential implications of the revisions. The critical questions posed in the civil action and congressional queries remain unanswered.
The Department of Education guidance regarding State Longitudinal Data Systems contains the suggestion that states collect sensitive personal information including: (QUOTE) “political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent; mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family, sex behavior or attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behaviour; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships; legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers; religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent; or income.”
The U.S. Department of Education and inBloom insist that the individual states and school districts determine what data is collected and to whom it is provided. The State DOE and the school district have yet to provide a comprehensive list of data points collected or of the entities that it will be provided to. The NY State DOE is unable to specify what information will be made available to for-profit corporations for data mining, marketing and advertising purposes.
The Sachem Central School District engaged college prep website service NAVIANCE by Hobsons, owned by DMGT, and AMPLIFY (formerly Wireless Generation), a Wi-Fi enabled tablet provider, owned by Rupert Murdoch (News Corp). So, who is NAVIANCE? The following excerpts
from DMGT’s 2013 corporate brochure are instructive:
(QUOTED from their website)
Data, especially big data, is becoming far more valuable. Businesses are hungry for contextualized information
Applications connect with social networking services as a matter of course
And it’s a two-way street. More and more businesses want to provide valuable services to customers to win their loyalty and mine their data
NAVIANCE encourages school districts to link social media services to the family page to drive student activity through their service. AMPLIFY’s tablets are pre-loaded with Google applications and entertainment applications. Google’s data mining is renowned. Its revelation in August that users have no expectation of confidentiality of information when using their services is sobering. DMGT’s Chief Executive acknowledged the need to develop hybrid clouds to assuage the sensitive data security concerns of the insurance industry to secure their business and Jeff Bezos of Amazon is building a private Cloud for the CIA. So how can their systems be secure enough for our children’s most personal and sensitive data? The recently disclosed Sachem Central School District data system breaches resulted in the compromise of personally identifiable student information and illuminated the nature of the risk.
Childhood is the age of exploration. Indiscretion and mischief are functions of exploration. The effort to digitize and record every youthful activity and communication in perpetuity and share it with third parties is pernicious. Imagine if every one of your youthful indiscretions had been recorded and potentially made available to recruiters, admissions personnel and prospective employers. Might your life have turned out differently?
Corporations refer to data as the new oil. Apart from the venality of offering up children to corporate data miners, the unprecedented aggregation of such sensitive personally identifiable information exposes children to exploitation by untold number of bad actors into whose hands the data might fall (pedophiles, extortionists, rival peers, etc.). Childhood is also a period of considerable fragility. The incidence of cyber-bullying and resultant suicides is troubling. Responsible policy anticipates and mitigates such risks.
Every other state that contracted with inBloom has honored the concerns of parents, acknowledged the gravity of privacy concerns and cancelled their engagement. New York is the only state that is moving forward in spite of the concerns of its citizens and the surfeit of unanswered questions. More than 120 New York School Districts have opted out of Race to the Top yet Sachem Central School District remains enrolled, expanded the NAVIANCE “college prep” service from high schools to the middle schools and intends to issue News Corp owned Google loaded Wi-F...