http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/business/microsoft-and-other-firms-pledge-to-protect-student-data.html 2014-10-07 06:47:00 Microsoft and Other Firms Pledge to Protect Student Data The participating companies are publicly committing themselves not to sell information on kindergartners through 12th graders. === A week after California enacted a landmark law restricting the ways education technology companies can use the information they collect about elementary through high school students, a group of leading industry players is pledging to adopt similar data protections nationwide. The 14 companies include: Microsoft; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the educational publishing house; The participating companies are publicly committing themselves not to sell information on kindergartners through 12th graders. They have also pledged not to use students’ data to target them with advertisements, and not to compile personal profiles of students unless authorized by schools or parents. The companies hope other educational technology providers will join them. The pledge “We wanted to say to parents: ‘No one’s going to sell your kids’ data; nobody’s going to track your child around the Internet; no one’s going to compile a profile that is used against your child when they apply for a job 20 years later,’ ” said Jules Polonetsky, executive director of the Future Privacy Forum, which has Although the pledge is not legally binding, companies that violate their own public representations on privacy could be subject to enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission. The effort comes at a pivotal moment for the growing software industry aimed at prekindergarten through 12th grade, a sector that generates But after recent data breaches at major retailers and banks, along with the revelations of government data-mining by the whistle-blower Edward J. Snowden, some parents have begun to publicly question whether school administrators have the capacity to monitor A 40-year-old federal law, the The For participating firms, the industry pledge effectively nationalizes the California ban on companies using personal information about students for activities not authorized by schools. “The pledge addresses some of the perceived weaknesses in Ferpa,” said Steve Mutkoski, the government policy director for Microsoft’s worldwide public sector business, “and does a good job consolidating many of the issues that have been raised in state legislation concerning how third-party service providers may use student data.” Participants must also agree to make clear disclosures about the types of information they collect and how they use it. Some legal experts noted that such voluntary efforts typically lacked oversight mechanisms. “While the pledge has some strengths, there’s no substitute for baseline federal protections,” said Khaliah Barnes, the director of the student privacy project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research group in Washington. “While I’ve heard there are a lot of key players participating, other key players are not signing on.” Google, for instance, has Mr. Polonetsky of the privacy forum said he expected additional companies to sign on. “If we’re successful,” he said, “we’ll see a lot of companies stepping up.”