Microsoft vows to uphold student privacy

By Kim Yoo-chul

Microsoft (MS) vowed Tuesday that it will take student privacy issues, specifically what type of personal information companies collect about students and for what purpose, seriously.

“With the advent of the cloud computing, technology has never been more powerful or more personal. But the cloud also opens up a range of potential issues, from government access to data, to vendor access to use of data. And not just for you ― for your sons and daughters, too,” Anthony Salcito, MS’s vice president of worldwide public sector education, said in an interview.

MS is one of several big names in education technology that has been consistently implementing new measures for the protection of student data as part of their efforts to address loopholes in privacy law and tighter regulation.

For MS, this pledge is about creating transparency and accountability on practices that it has already implemented into its educational products.

Salcito said its Office 365 software was the first major cloud productivity service that made commitments not to use student data for advertising purposes ― no caveats, loopholes or reservations.

“From a big picture perspective, however, the pledge seeks to gain greater consensus among all education technology service providers, applying more pressure for uniform treatment of student data by everyone in the industry,” he said.

Currently, privacy law protects only official educational records, not the vast streams of data that students create when they click through textbooks, watch tutorials, play games, take quizzes and do homework online.

Companies that provide those educational resources can collect millions of unique data points on a child in a single day, learning not just what a student knows, but how that student thinks, by monitoring every keystroke.

“But that is certainly not the world that our students live in today. Technologies can now empower educators and transform education, and the use of these services in learning opens up countless opportunities for students ― from personalized learning to learning anytime, anywhere,” Salcito said.

He also said such pledge makes sure school service providers only collect data for educational purposes and not for targeting advertising or developing profiles of students.

Accordingly, the executive urged the educational industry to work together, because there is so much promise in education for the use of new digital technologies, and we want to ensure that promise is realized, he said.

“It’s clear to us that failure to build trust among parents, teachers and school administrators increases the risk that new, valuable and safe technologies will be blocked as part of a larger backlash related to valid privacy concerns,” he said.

Still, the pledge does not contain any enforcement mechanisms. Organizers said consumer fraud laws and pressure from parents would suffice to hold companies to their word.

Salcito said parents and school officials around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the privacy implications of third party involvement in school technology systems, and legislators and regulators are beginning to consider new laws and regulations that touch on the issue of student privacy.

“We hope the pledge can operate as a north star that helps guide everyone toward an outcome that allows us to reap the benefits of new technologies in the classroom, but respects and protects the privacy rights of our children,” he said.

“At MS, we are guided by the principle that student safety and privacy rights must come first. We understand that we need to get this right, not just MS, but the industry as a whole.”