During the pandemic, schools became more reliant on tech than ever.
The number of edtech products schools access in a typical month has tripled since four years ago to more than 1,400 tools, according to a recent estimate by Learn Platform, an edtech company that helps schools manage tech.
And the companies that provide these tools aren’t always careful stewards of the sometimes-sensitive information they collect from students. For example: A review of how companies handle student data by Internet Safety Labs, a nonprofit that tests software products, showed that 96 percent of apps used and recommended by U.S. educational institutions shared that data with third parties. Often the data was being shared with advertisers, even though schools — let alone parents or students — didn’t know or consent to it.
To observers, this threatens to amplify the data privacy problem faced by K-12 schools, which have become a big target for hackers. That’s because the growing number of companies handling student data through tech tools creates more potential sources of hacks or leaks.
These days the systems holding school data can seem like a bank vault with sophisticated locks but no back wall, says Michael King, a retired vice president and general manager of global education for IBM.
Not long ago, schools kept all their student data on servers at schools. But because the norm is now for services to keep data on cloud servers, schools must rely on the vendors to keep information secure, King says. “You can lock down all your student data you want within your district, but if a hacker hits one of your vendors, and they’ve got student data in their system, you’ve still got a leak of your student data,” King adds.
Keeping a Safe Distance
The companies that work with schools are aware of this concern. And with privacy concerns rising, some providers want nothing to do with personal data.
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