3 Education Issues That Remind Us Why It's Time for New Leadership, Part 3

Statement

Part 3: Protecting Student Privacy

Senator Lee Zeldin, Republican and Conservative Party candidate for Congress in New York's First Congressional District, released the third of a three part series this week on three education issues that remind us why it's time for new leadership:

"With growing threats to our children's privacy and security, more must be done to protect them. Our students are being left vulnerable to big data companies. That's why I co-sponsored several bills in the State Senate that prohibited the release of personally identifying student information to third parties without parental consent.

During this year's budget, in the New York State Legislature, we focused on protecting student privacy. We established strict data protection and security requirements, including establishing a "Parents' Bill of Rights for Data Privacy' that creates transparency about what data is being collected by school districts and the State, as well as who it is shared with and why. It also appoints a Chief Privacy Officer for the State Education Department. Another main focus was creating procedures to notify parents if there is a breach of information, as well as establishing strong penalties for violations. Another focus of this year's budget was ending the New York State contract with inBloom. The federal government played a critical role in creating these vulnerabilities that threaten our children's privacy. In order to receive financial incentives from the federal government, New York State had to sign up for some of these privacy-invading policies.

Currently, on the federal level, the law only protects student information from official educational records. This leaves our children vulnerable to companies that provide education resources, such as online textbooks, homework and games. While our children are using these resources, these companies could be collecting all sorts of data without us knowing. That's why more must be done on the federal level to protect our vulnerable students' privacy rights. Parents deserve the right to have the final say when it comes to storing sensitive information about their children."

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