Why School Districts and Students Need to Be Concerned About Data Privacy

Student data privacy should be a concern for all school districts and students, as personal information can be gathered by companies and individuals that don’t always have your best interest in mind. Technology has changed the education landscape for the better, but controlling information sharing can be difficult.

People are always concerned about hackers gaining access to their personal information, but apps, websites, and search engines are gathering your information and sharing it with third parties.

Data Sharing
One study showed that 90 percent of Android apps could legally share your information with Google. Back in 2017, one-third of the apps in the Google Play store could transfer your data to up to 10 third parties. To take it further, 20 percent of these apps would share your data with more than 20 various companies. They are making revenue by sharing your information.

The biggest tech company that gathers your data and is the biggest culprit is Google.

The information they exchange could include your name, age, gender, location, data about your Wi-Fi router, and any other app on your devices. They can also take it further and share information about a person’s health background and personal financial data.

Cookies Aren’t Always Delicious
Cookies can be helpful as far as technology is concerned. It can remember your most visited websites and assist you in displaying the URLs instantly. Plus, they can remember your username and password for you. Additionally, malware is not associated with cookies, and neither are viruses.

However, the problem occurs when third parties get access to your information. Not only will they know your browsing history, but they can access your accounts with the saved usernames and passwords.

TikTok
The two companies that share your data the most are Google and TikTok. TikTok became the most visited site last year. It even eclipsed Google. But they are selling your information to third parties. And these third parties could be using your information in ways you would disapprove of.

Part of TikTok’s privacy policy states:
“We collect certain information about the device you use to access the Platform, such as your IP address, user agent, mobile carrier, time zone settings, identifiers for advertising purposes, model of your device, the device system, network type, device IDs, your screen resolution and operating system, app and file names and types, keystroke patterns or rhythms, battery state, audio settings, and connected audio devices. Where you log in from multiple devices, we can use your profile information to identify your activity across devices. We may also associate you with information collected from devices other than those you use to log in to the Platform.”

That doesn’t sound good.

Ways to Take Ownership of Your Data
Parents, district leaders, teachers, and students must read each popular app’s terms and conditions before adding them to devices. If the terms and conditions do not present themselves, do an online search of the app name + terms and conditions. If privacy is a concern after reading the terms and conditions, this app may not be for you.

Try Your Best with Google
To limit Google’s data collection while using Chrome, the privacy settings will enable you to turn off third parties cookies. You may also turn off the ability to sync so all of your devices don’t have the same browsing history. To take it a step further, you can prevent Google from recording your web activity, stop personalized advertisements, and turn off access to know your location using Google’s Activity Controls.

Still, it won’t prevent Google from collecting data about you. If you use Google and its products, you are operating on their terms and conditions.

Know Which Apps Are Sharing Your Information
If using an iPhone, go into the App Store, click on search, and type in the name of the app in question that you would like to know more about their privacy and collection terms. Once on the app, check out the App Privacy section and determine whether how they use your information is something you can live with.

Academic Coaching
Protecting student privacy is something all of us should be concerned with. Here at iAchieve, we offer academic coaching for students who need help with such things as time management, organization, reading strategies, goal setting, motivation, and similar issues. By working together, we could also determine which apps could help with these problems rather than simultaneously harvesting your information for profit.

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