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College students today might be paying twice for their education: once for tuition costs and again with their privacy. That’s one of the findings from a new report by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Among the study’s key takeaways:
- Limited Protections: Higher education students are often required to use and pay for access to digital instructional materials, yet they have extremely limited access to data privacy rights and protections. Federal law has not kept pace with technology, and relevant state laws focus on K-12 students or rely on consent–an element notably absent in this context.
- Lack of Transparency: The data privacy practices surrounding digital instructional materials in higher education are largely opaque. Neither students nor instructors have a clear understanding of how personal data is collected, used, stored, or shared. Companies rarely provide clear information in public policies, and institutions are not required to make vetting processes readily available for review.
- Inconsistent Policies and Practices: There appears to be no data protection standard or accepted best practices in place across educational institutions or companies providing digital instructional materials. Even the existence of contracts between institutions and providers varies. Data practices and privacy protections seem to be largely left to the ed-tech companies’ discretion.
- Significant Room for Improvement: Higher education institutions and ed-tech companies have substantial opportunities to better protect students’ data. This could involve adopting state or federal legal requirements, implementing institution- or system-wide contracting and review practices, and obtaining clear commitments from companies to protect student data.