Tanya Roscorla

Instead of locking student data in the principal’s office, more school districts are moving it to cloud providers.

By sharing data with private companies, schools can improve student learning using data analysis tools. But on the flip side, privacy advocates worry that student data is not safe in the hands of schools or the third parties they contract with. “Across the board, students unfortunately don’t have the level of protection they need,” said Khaliah Barnes, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Student Privacy Project. Voices of concern seem to be getting louder.

A lawsuit filed in California accused Google of violating anti-wiretapping laws by scanning student email, a practice the company has since abandoned. At least 32 states have taken up student data privacy legislation this session. And policymakers throughout the nation had previously gathered in Washington, DC for a School Privacy Summit that addressed this matter. The issue of student data privacy has indeed sparked a national conversation.

Common Sense Media recommends three overarching principles for schools and policymakers to consider:

1. Students’ personal information should be used only for educational purposes.
2. Students’ personal information and online activity should not be used to target advertising to students or families.
3. Education technology providers in schools should have appropriate data security policies in place.

This century, we face a much larger challenge than bringing 100 gigabyte connectivity to college campuses. We have to figure out how to feed 9 billion people and decrease poverty.

Government, higher education and citizens must all come to the table and work together to solve this problem with the help of technology, said Chris Vein, chief innovation officer for global information and communications technology at the World Bank.

In a keynote at the 2014 Internet2 Global Summit in Denver on Monday, April 7, Vein said that the World Bank is shooting for two goals: Nearly end extreme poverty by 2030 and grow the income of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each country. Three of his keys to solving this worldwide problem of hunger and poverty include bringing Internet connectivity to another billion citizens, transforming bureaucracy and innovating innovation itself. By bringing together public entities, private organizations, citizens, and the higher education research and development community, everyone can start building small solutions to solve these problems.

He suggested that governments needs to let go of control over data and open it up to the community so they could create panaceas for problems together. And they also need to highlight projects that are working well.