Calls needed to senators’ offices!
See the message below from a leading student-privacy warrior in NY.
The Capitol phone number is 202.224.3121
From: Leonie Haimson
Date: Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 12:18 PM
Subject: Action alert! for student privacy
We just heard that RIGHT NOW, the Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions committee) is negotiating over the re-authorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act. We were told that there are Democrats on the committee who are pushing for relaxing limits on access to personal student data, and are saying that researchers should be able to obtain open-ended access to complete student data sets– and that they shouldn’t have to even specify which specific student level data they want for what purposes.
We are urging all parents/advocates to call their Senators in DC ASAP and if possible on Monday morning ESPECIALLY if your Senator is on the HELP committee (listed with links to their contact info below) and especially the Democrats, and ask to speak to their education staffers with the following message:
As regards the Education Sciences Reform Act, student data used by researchers should be de-identified and anonymized to the extent possible. In NO case should any researcher obtain open-ended access to personally identifiable student data without parental consent. There must be strict oversight and protocols, and the researcher must explain exactly what type of personal data they need for what particular purpose and why it is absolutely necessary to complete their analysis and why this could not be achieved with anonymized data.
If you have more time to talk, you can point out that there have been more than 700 reported breaches of personal data from educational institutions since 2005 according to http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach
You can also point out that the NCES has said that Fair Information Practices require that only personal information that is directly relevant and necessary for the specified purpose should be collected and/or shared…
Please email us if you have any questions.
It is especially important that parents/advocates who live in the states represented by Dems below call on Monday.
Thanks Leonie and Rachael
Co-chairs, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
Senate HELP Committee
Democrats by Rank
Tom Harkin (IA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Patty Murray (WA)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay R. Hagan (NC)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael F. Bennet (CO)
Sheldon Whitehouse (RI)
Tammy Baldwin (WI)
Christopher S. Murphy (CT)
Elizabeth Warren (MA)
Republicans by Rank
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Rand Paul (KY)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Tim Scott (SC)
Fair Information Practices: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011601.pdf