On February 17, the Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO) and the Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) of the US Department of Education held a “listening session” with representatives from a few privacy advocacy groups as well as some organizations funded by the ed tech industry.  The most vocal participants urging stronger enforcement of federal student privacy laws were Cassie Creswell and I, co-chairs of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, and Joel Schwarz and Andrew Liddell of the Student Data Privacy Project.

Kevin Herms, Chief Privacy Officer and Director of SPPO, and Ross Lemke, Manager of PTAC, encouraged the participants to send  follow-up letters to summarize their concerns.  Our letter detailing some of them is below.  Joel Schwarz’s follow-up letter is posted on his LinkedIn page.

Hopefully the strong discontent expressed by several participants of this “listening session” will lead to stronger and more effective action by the US Department of Education, which is in charge of enforcing our critical federal student privacy laws including FERPA, PPRA, and COPPA, but too often seems to be sleeping at the wheel.