Pages

▼

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

WTOP: Your children’s school could be giving away their information

WASHINGTON — The back-to-school routine involves a crush of forms and permission slips for parents to sign. And they’re all important, but one could be critical for you and your child’s privacy, and even safety.
“Schools are allowed by federal law to share or sell directory information about their students with anyone, including data brokers and marketing companies, unless they have a parental opt-out form on file,” NBC News Consumer Correspondent Herb Weisbaum tells WTOP.
This means parents, and even students, are subject to “a torrent of advertising, or worse — you know, this is just the sort of information a stalker, abuser, predator or identity thief needs.”
Parents and children who have fled abusive situations are particularly at risk, Weisbaum says....

 http://wtop.com/education/2015/09/childrens-school-giving-away-information/
at

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2015 at 4:04 PM

    Welcome to the Digital Age.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Janis SartucciSeptember 15, 2015 at 4:08 PM

      No, welcome to MCPS has no clue what they are doing and is completely sloppy with your child's security. Student homework is already publicly posted to the Internet thanks to MCPS, and students are online using their MCPS e-mail addresses making them easily identifiable to online predators. These are all rookie mistakes being made by a $2.4 billion public school system. Inexcusable.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2015 at 7:14 PM

      I agree, but in the age of the Digital Age there are a few people with a lot of time in their hands hacking even into the most secure databases.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2015 at 8:18 PM

      Why does MCPS have an "Opt-Out" form? Shouldn't they secure all student data and only have an "Opt-In" form?

      Delete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2015 at 9:09 PM

    I'm an army veteran and about three years ago they hacked into the data of hundreds of thousands of vets and all that we got was assurances it would be monitored for a year. A year or two later the same thing happened to many more veterans and I believe active duty servicemen including addresses, family members etc. Anyone can be hacked including the top banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, government and its agencies, etc., according to news reports of actual incidences, but this potential opportunity in this County for a breach appears to be a strong possibility., unless they are more protected than our military or Bank of America.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2015 at 9:42 PM

      As long as the alphabet soup entities have their say there'll be back doors embedded into them.

      Delete

If your comment does not appear in 24 hours, please send your comment directly to our e-mail address:
parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com