students database tech startups, spooks parents

[xdivision_whitey]

An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.

But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

Entrepreneurs can't wait.

"This is going to be a huge win for us," said Jeffrey Olen, a product manager at CompassLearning, which sells education software.

CompassLearning will join two dozen technology companies at this week's SXSWedu conference in demonstrating how they might mine the database to create custom products - educational games for students, lesson plans for teachers, progress reports for principals.

The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided most of the funding, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from several states. Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, built the infrastructure over the past 18 months. When it was ready, the Gates Foundation turned the database over to a newly created nonprofit, inBloom Inc, which will run it.

States and school districts can choose whether they want to input their student records into the system; the service is free for now, though inBloom officials say they will likely start to charge fees in 2015. So far, seven states - Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Massachusetts - have committed to enter data from select school districts. Louisiana and New York will be entering nearly all student records statewide.

"We look at personalized learning as the next big leap forward in education," said Brandon Williams, a director at the Illinois State Board of Education.

IF DATA LEAKS, WHAT REMEDIES?

Federal officials say the database project complies with privacy laws. Schools do not need parental consent to share student records with any "school official" who has a "legitimate educational interest," according to the Department of Education. The department defines "school official" to include private companies hired by the school, so long as they use the data only for the purposes spelled out in their contracts.

The database also gives school administrators full control over student files, so they could choose to share test scores with a vendor but withhold social security numbers or disability records.

That's hardly reassuring to many parents.

"Once this information gets out there, it's going to be abused. There's no doubt in my mind," said Jason France, a father of two in Louisiana.


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[Honey of the South]

Yea, somebody's gonna abuse the hell out of something like that. Better hope there aren't any ***** looking at those databases. Ever.

[Shama_okami]

So they're creating an identity thief's wet dream?

[David2074]

Shama_okami

So they're creating an identity thief's wet dream?

Not really. Most identity thieves are in it for the cash - like credit card fraud or accessing online banking. Knowing a 12 year old's grades or even his SSN doesn't help much with that and even if they get the SSN of a student about to turn 18, most brand new adults have no credit / s**t credit.

I think the bigger concern here is abusive / invasive marketing. Time will tell on that one. It really depends on whether / how much schools abuse their privileges. Using aggregate data to determine say the need for a good math tutorial that helps teach the principal of 'x' could be a good thing. "Hiring" some company to get around a technical restriction on giving out the data and then more or less selling them personal student data could be a very bad thing. And of course flat out hacking / stealing data.

[Shama_okami]

David2074

Shama_okami

So they're creating an identity thief's wet dream?

Not really. Most identity thieves are in it for the cash - like credit card fraud or accessing online banking. Knowing a 12 year old's grades or even his SSN doesn't help much with that and even if they get the SSN of a student about to turn 18, most brand new adults have no credit / s**t credit.

I think the bigger concern here is abusive / invasive marketing. Time will tell on that one. It really depends on whether / how much schools abuse their privileges. Using aggregate data to determine say the need for a good math tutorial that helps teach the principal of 'x' could be a good thing. "Hiring" some company to get around a technical restriction on giving out the data and then more or less selling them personal student data could be a very bad thing. And of course flat out hacking / stealing data.

I think the shear number of identities they could get from a single hack would be worth the small return on each one stolen.

[David2074]

Shama_okami

David2074

Shama_okami

So they're creating an identity thief's wet dream?

Not really. Most identity thieves are in it for the cash - like credit card fraud or accessing online banking. Knowing a 12 year old's grades or even his SSN doesn't help much with that and even if they get the SSN of a student about to turn 18, most brand new adults have no credit / s**t credit.

I think the bigger concern here is abusive / invasive marketing. Time will tell on that one. It really depends on whether / how much schools abuse their privileges. Using aggregate data to determine say the need for a good math tutorial that helps teach the principal of 'x' could be a good thing. "Hiring" some company to get around a technical restriction on giving out the data and then more or less selling them personal student data could be a very bad thing. And of course flat out hacking / stealing data.

I think the shear number of identities they could get from a single hack would be worth the small return on each one stolen.

Well, I'm not an identity thief so I can't say for sure one way or the other. My thought is they don't give a s**t about Billy's grades so there wouldn't be any return. The only advantage I can think of would maybe be for trying to make some false ID papers. For example - get the name / SSN of a legal Mexican / Hispanic and somehow use them to get some fake (or falsely obtained) ID papers to sell to an illegal Mexican. Something like that.

I still think that when it comes to 'wet dreams' for identity thieves there are other much more attractive databases out there. Those databases have been and will continue to be targets. More than once over the years I've had a credit card company send me a new card/number because someone hacked their database or stole data from the inside. In the big picture though any large, useful database will always be a two edged sword. Financial, medical, educational etc. It will boil down to how it is maintained and used. However given the huge number of schools with access I expect sooner or later someone will screw up or give in to corruption.

[CuteMinta]

Not nearly as bad as hearing in San Antonio Texas some school wanted to micro chip their students. To keep track of what they were doing, due to lots of class skipping.

Still dont like this database program. Can see why parents were uneasy with it.