PRIVACY BILLS GALORE: On May 14, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) introduced the Student Privacy Protection Act, a bill which proposes a rewrite of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. If passed, the bill will require that an educational agency get prior consent from a student’s guardians for companies to use student data, and would also offer privacy protections to homeschooled students. Senator Vitter’s bill comes close on the heels of the Protecting Student Privacy Act, proposed on May 13 by Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), which would also amend FERPA to further regulate use of student data by edtech companies.
