FTC Files Amicus Brief Saying COPPA Can’t Force Parents Into Arbitration

The agency opposes efforts to invoke Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act to deprive parental rights

The Federal Trade Commission filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit brought by a group of parents who are suing IXL Learning, Inc. The FTC’s brief disputes the company’s argument that under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and the COPPA Rule, the schools’ agreement to binding arbitration also applied to parents.

The plaintiffs in the case – Shanahan, et al. v. IXL Learning, Inc. – are parents of school age children who allege IXL Learning illegally collected, used and sold their children’s data on their website and software in school. The parents’ putative class action lawsuit alleges that the education company violated various laws, including the Federal Wiretap Act and multiple California statutes, as well as common law privacy torts.

IXL Learning, which provides websites and school educational services, filed a motion to compel arbitration, claiming that the school districts agreed to the company’s full terms of service, including an arbitration provision. IXL Learning argued that under COPPA, school districts act as agents for the parents in the use of IXL’s educational services, and the parents are therefore bound by the full terms of service.

The FTC amicus brief clarifies that nothing in COPPA or the COPPA Rule dictates that parents and children should be bound by every part of the terms of service agreement between a company like IXL Learning and a school district, nor does COPPA support a claim that parents should be bound to arbitration in this case.

In December 2023, the Commission proposed amendments to strengthen the COPPA Rule by further limiting companies’ ability to monetize children’s data. The proposed Rule would require targeted advertising to be off by default, bar indefinite retention of kids’ data, and strengthen data security. The Commission’s review of this Rule is ongoing.

The agency filed its amicus brief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. 

The Commission voted 5-0 to file the amicus brief. Commissioner Andrew Ferguson issued a concurring statement.

The Federal Trade Commission works to promote competition and protect and educate consumers.  The FTC will never demand money, make threats, tell you to transfer money, or promise you a prize. Learn more about consumer topics at consumer.ftc.gov, or report fraud, scams, and bad business practices at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Follow the FTC on social media, read consumer alerts and the business blog, and sign up to get the latest FTC news and alerts.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/ftc-files-amicus-brief-saying-coppa-cant-force-parents-arbitration

I-Team: Teacher-student relationships begin through texts and social media

Sexual relationships between teachers and students are becoming more in more common in our area.

 

Most of these relationships begin brewing from online or through text messages. The I-Team has found some believe policies on teacher-student communication need to be stronger.

 

Andrea Clemens moved to Florida years ago after, she tells us, she was raped and stalked by her middle school teacher Robert Baker.

 

She was 14, and he was the award winning teacher everyone liked.

 

He befriended her for two years. She says he crossed the line when she was 16.

  

...

Fred spent six years studying teacher-student sex abuse. He wrote the book “Cybertraps for Educators.”

 

"Consistently my recommendation to school boards is that the duty of care and the standard teachers should be held to is no unmediated conversation electronically," Fred said.

...

 

Districts that lack clear cut policies run the risk of enabling the bad behavior, according to Fred and Andrea. Fred calls the problem an epidemic.

 

"You could quibble of whether or not that that's too strong of a word, but I think it's defensible in terms of both the scope of the problem and perhaps more significantly our delay in treating it," Fred said.

 

Andreas tells us, "It can't lead any place good. It really can't, and I don't understand why schools wouldn't rush to implement policies immediately just to keep the kids safe and keep the teachers safe, too."

 ...

 http://www.abcactionnews.com/news/hillsborough-regional-news/i-team-teacher-student-relationships-begin-through-texts-and-social-media

“The incidents of child sexual exploitation has reached staggering proportions,”

238 arrested in “Operation Heartbreak” sting on child predators in California, 1,400 accused perverts busted nationwide

...Officials stressed how important it was for parents to talk to their children about internet safety, especially on social media, where the majority of child predators lurk for victims...

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/

Elementary School Students' Pictures, Phone Numbers Mistakenly Posted Online

A Montgomery County school information technology administrator has apologized for mistakenly allowing pictures, phone numbers and student identification numbers of at least 16 elementary school students to be posted online.

The students' personal information remained online for months. The children attended Wood Acres Elementary in Bethesda...

 http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Childrens-Faces-Phone-Numbers-Mistakenly-PostOnline-300999881.html

 

   2015 MCPS Collette Privacy Breach by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

MCPS Says Parents Have No Need To Worry About Classroom Chromebook Privacy

Parents at the meeting last week also expressed concern about Pearson Education, the company that has its hands in a number of educational products, including the upcoming Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers or PARCC tests.
Unlike Google, Pearson has not signed the pledge against using student information for advertising purposes. This year, MCPS rolled out myMCPS, a new online class registration system for middle and high schoolers that uses Pearson technology.

 http://www.bethesdanow.com/2015/02/26/mcps-says-parents-have-no-need-to-worry-about-classroom-chromebook-privacy/#more-28240

MCPS Parents: A Day in the Life of a Data Mined Kid — Story from Marketplace, Includes Audio and Infographic

This is an important report for MCPS parents and guardians to hear!  

Keep in mind that the Montgomery County Board of Education has not discussed or addressed these issues in any way, shape or form.  There are no policies, no protections for MCPS students.
 
Listen at this link:
http://coreconcerns.weebly.com/data-brokers/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-data-mined-kid-story-from-marketplace-includes-audio-and-infographic

Principal quits, teacher under fire for videotaping boy stuck in chair

http://www.freep.com/article/20140226/NEWS06/302260147/teacher-video-tapes-boy-stuck-in-school-room-chair

Reteach and Relearn - for HS Administrators - FERPA Primer Refresher

Reteach, relearn, and reinforce is not just for students.  Sometimes principals need to be retaught basic laws that they (should) know from all that administrator training taxpayer sponsor for MCPS staff members.  We all have different learning styles.

Nelson McLeod at Richard Montgomery HS must need a lot of reteaching and reinforcing.  He still insists on breaking federal student privacy laws by posting student's personal identifiable information - in this case who owes money to the school - by ID numbers, so its time for the annual reminder concerning the obligations wall. 

Here are two pictures sent to me this evening:

Redacted list of Student ID numbers as seen on bulletin board at Richard Montgomery High School 6/14/11

Once again, to reinforce the original concept that apparently was not learned, here is my short primer on FERPA and the Obligation Wall.

Given that this is a widespread and recurring problem in MCPS - maybe Dr. McLeod's actions can be considered within the "egregious" category.  We'll ask the federal Department of Education to withhold funding for Richard Montgomery.

I wonder if Dr. Starr noticed the violation when he was at Richard Montgomery tonight.  If we are really lucky, Dr. Starr should be able to address this stiuation immediately - perhaps he can give Dr. McLeod a personal lesson over coffee.

For those of you who would like to know more about educational privacy rights, here is the short version of FERPA.



The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the federal privacy act equivalent for educational records. All schools that receive federal funding are subject to FERPA. FERPA is a personal right - that is, the cause of action may only be brought by the individual whose rights have been violated. For example, only a student or parent of a student named on the "obligations wall" (at Richard Montgomery, Blake, or Whitman) or public HSA remedial list (Blair) is entitled to file a complaint with the US Department of Education. If my child's rights aren't violated, sorry, no right to complain.


Remedies are mostly corrective - the objectives are get the school or school system to fix their policies and procedures. However, the regulations do permit the Department of Education to withhold funding for egregious cases - see 34 CFR 99.61 et seq.

As a lawyer involved in freedom of information and privacy act issues, most people I know outside of MCPS who deal with records subject to the privacy act or educational research and testing work very diligently to comply with the various requirements of the applicable privacy laws and regulations. MCPS is rather cavalier in its interpretations - but then again, that seems consistent with MCPS believing that most laws and policies are meant for others. I know I've spoken with my kids schools about having volunteers helping out with mailing interims, but didn't get very far, since the school claimed the volunteers were working just like school staff. How fascinating. I've only had one instance that I know about where my child's name was on the "obligations wall," and at that point I was more concerned about whether she could purchase a homecoming ticket than I was about filing a FERPA complaint.

So - given that this is a recurring problem in MCPS - maybe this posting has risen to the level of an "egregious" case and ask the federal Department of Education to withhold funding for Richard Montgomery.



More on FERPA is on the Department of Education's website:http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
See the original post at:  Short Primer on FERPA and "Obligations Wall"

Families Say Schools Snoop in Their Homes With District-Issued Laptops & Webcams

Courthouse News Service: Big Brother Is Here: Families Say Schools Snoop in Their Homes With District-Issued Laptops & Webcams

Whitman Black & White: MyMCPS should not be unrestricted for teachers

In an online Black & White opinion piece dated December 11, 2009, Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda) student Alana Neuman asserts that the new MyMCPS system allows broader access to student data than necessary.

From Ms. Neuman's article:

Any MCPS teacher can view a student’s data if that student attends or previously attended the school that they teach at; a teacher needn’t have taught that student themselves.

[...]

Even if the majority of teachers don’t monitor myMCPS, the mere fact that teachers have unrestricted access to this information demonstrates MCPS officials’ disregard for students’ privacy. Even if MCPS intends to facilitate students’ academic success with this program, SAT and ACT scores aren’t public information that should be distributed among MCPS employees. School administrators and teachers need to obtain consent from students before planning to make use of their standardized test scores.

Back in October 2009, BCC High School The Tattler reporter Tena Thau wrote about MyMCPS in her article titled myMCPS: Facebook for Teachers?.

From Ms. Thau's article:

Students, on the other hand, are not as enthused.  MyMCPS allows teachers and administrators unrestricted access to students’ report cards, transcripts, accommodations, disciplinary history, attendance records, and even SAT and ACT scores. As a result, many students feel that their teachers have formed judgments about them, before they have even stepped into class.

“I don’t like the idea of teachers being able to know everything about their students’ past with the click of a button,” junior Zoë Thorpe explains.  “I feel like students should be able to go into a new class with a clean slate.”

But thanks to myMCPS, no such tabula rasa will exist for students anymore.  Of course, not all students are objecting.  Unsurprisingly, one senior class valedictorian says that she does not mind teachers’ easy access to her flawless four-year record.

The student privacy issues brought forth by Ms. Neuman and Ms. Thau affect students throughout MCPS and would seem to be a topic that could be addressed by the Student Member of the Board (SMOB).

Student record privacy is governed at the federal level by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Short Primer on FERPA and "Obligations Wall"

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is the federal privacy act equivalent for educational records. All schools that receive federal funding are subject to FERPA. FERPA is a personal right - that is, the cause of action may only be brought by the individual whose rights have been violated. For example, only a student or parent of a student named on the "obligations wall" (at Richard Montgomery, Blake, or Whitman) or public HSA remedial list (Blair) is entitled to file a complaint with the US Department of Education. If my child's rights aren't violated, sorry, no right to complain.

Remedies are mostly corrective - the objectives are get the school or school system to fix their policies and procedures. However, the regulations do permit the Department of Education to withhold funding for egregious cases - see 34 CFR 99.61 et seq.

As a lawyer involved in freedom of information and privacy act issues, most people I know outside of MCPS in who deal with records subject to the privacy act or educational research and testing work very diligently to comply with the various requirements of the applicable privacy laws and regulations. MCPS is rather cavalier in its interpretations - but then again, that seems consistent with MCPS believing that most laws and policies are meant for others. I know I've spoken with my kids schools about having volunteers helping out with mailing interims, but didn't get very far, since the school claimed the volunteers were working just like school staff. How fascinating. I've only had one instance that I know about where my child's name was on the "obligations wall," and at that point I was more concerned about whether she could purchase a homecoming ticket than I was about filing a FERPA complaint.

More on FERPA is on the Department of Education's website:http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html