Chairman Wolfe: Restrict Release of Identifiable Student Information

 

The Rockland County Legislature passed a resolution at its Tuesday evening meeting that was introduced by Chairman Alden H. Wolfe that calls upon New York State legislators to pass Senate (S.5932) and Assembly (A.6059A), a bill that would protect the privacy of students by prohibiting the release of personally identifiable information to certain third parties unless there is parental consent or the consent of a student who is 18 or older.  Information protected by the proposed state law would include student names, addresses, grades, test scores, economic status, race, special education classification, disciplinary history and more.  

 

New York State is among a handful of states that agreed to share confidential student information with several corporations that could then share the information with software companies and other for-profit vendors to ostensibly provide more personalized learning tools; this bill would protect students from being targeted, without their knowledge, for marketing and sales purposes.  

 

Chairman Wolfe said, “Parents and students over eighteen should have the right to determine what personal information can be released to third parties. As a parent, I worry that once a student’s personal information is released, there is no way to know how it is used, who will have access to the data, and what security threats this could pose. We have laws that ensure our personal health records are kept private; we need similar laws to protect our students’ educational data. In this digital age, we are all too aware of how information sharing could be abused. ”