Background on need to strengthen NYC Chancellor’s regs on student privacy

Please read and sign our letter, already signed by several members of the Chancellor’s Data Privacy Working Group as well as education advocacy organizations and NYC Council Members, in opposition to the weakening of DOE’s student privacy protections in their proposed amendments to Chancellor’s regulation A-820. If you would like to sign on, please fill out this form.

These revisions would allow DOE to disclose a vast array of highly sensitive student data to any individual or business they please, including students’ and parents’ names, email addresses, cell phones, home addresses, photos, and more, as long as they believe it would benefit the DOE or the students involved, with only a highly unreliable parent opt out method to prevent this. The weakening of this regulation is up for a vote at the May 28 Panel for Educational Policy meeting, after the initial vote on this measure was delayed in October because of parent and advocate concerns and over 3,000 emails sent to the Chancellor and PEP members.  More background on this issue is below.