Internet Safety Labs, a non-profit organization on a mission to ensure online product safety, released a new study on ed-tech apps that share student data with third parties.
The findings make one thing very clear: the technology used by U.S. schools poses substantial privacy and safety risks to children and their families. On the one hand, teachers are encouraged to use technology, communicate with parents, and be innovative, but on the other hand, there may be insufficient privacy policies in place to protect teachers and students.
This puts our children right in the cross-currents of competing imperatives: technology and privacy.
Key Findings:
- 96% of classroom-related apps share children’s personal information with third parties, making them risky and unsafe.
- 78% of the information sharing is done for advertising and data analytics purposes
- Information sharing is usually done without the knowledge, intent, or consent of the app users
- 28% of apps were not specifically related to education. YouTube, Spotify, and some news sites are examples of these entities.
- Ads displayed on school apps create additional opportunities for advertising networks. The majority of these apps use retargeting ad campaigns to shore up their ad effectiveness, using cookies and search history. This serves as a double round of personal student data being directed into advertising networks to the advantage of marketing and advertising groups.
- A whopping 68% of apps were observed sending data to Google.
- Apple came in second as the most heavily trafficked platform with 36% of apps sending data to Apple.
“This benchmark is a much-needed measurement of just how safe edtech technology is for our youth,” said Lisa LeVasseur, executive director of Internet Safety Labs. “We all know how much personal data is already flowing to companies that excel in monetizing it, but this research provides an accurate look at the reality of where student data is going. We hope this research will highlight how urgent the problem is and further our efforts to create strong software product safety standards that lead to positive change and make internet-connected technology safe for everyone.”
What are your thoughts about this study? Is technology so important in our classrooms, to the extent it may put students at risk?
