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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Question: Has anyone actually read Zoom’s fine print privacy policy?

The larger issue here that everyone seems to be overlooking is Zoom and other ed tech programs are neither private nor secure; they collect and share children’s personal data, sell data for targeted advertising often without our knowledge or consent — this violates FERPA and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint with the FTC that Zoom has committed unfair and deceptive practices .

It may not be an issue if DCPS had a written contract with Zoom that explicitly states the company will not use student data for any purpose beyond the company's stated function... However, right now DCPS does not have a written contract with Zoom.

A broader issue is that DCPS school admins and teachers are utilizing unvetted free tech products and are directly implementing these products to their single sign-on platforms for students, without giving parents proper notice or getting their consent, and usually without a choice to opt out of such privacy-invading technology. Students and their parents have a right to know how their data is being used and schools should not solely rely on a companies data privacy policies. DCPS have proven time and time again that they do not take student data protection and privacy seriously, and seemingly careless and clueless about how problematic this is — the investigative burden of Ed tech and data privacy seems to fall on the shoulders of the (woke) teachers, parents and students.

DCPS administrators, teachers, and PARENTS need to understand by using some of these free services they may be potentially giving students (and their parents) sensitive information away, and many of these services and technologies retain and store the invasive data they gather about students (and their parents). This data can tell detailed stories about a student’s life and contain extremely sensitive information that can cause serious harm if there is a data leak (which seems to have already occurred today at a certain DCPS Highschool). DCPS should also provide students and parents with better transparency and assurances with regards to how data is collected, used, stored, and protected. Our data is apart of our identities and is a form of ‘social currency’

For all teachers that are having a fit over the Zoom ban — you should not prioritize your own convenience over students' privacy. Consider researching a videoconferencing platform called ’Jitsi’ , which is currently recommended by privacy advocates; it’s free, open source and doesn’t require you make an account first.

Links: 
https://www.epic.org/privacy/ftc/zoom/EPIC-FTC-Complaint-In-re-Zoom-7-19.pdf 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/03/2...se-about-student-data-privacy/ 
[/quote]

This is useful information, thank you.  Teachers probably don't have a bunch of time to read the fine print and research various live teaching platforms given they had to teacher themselves various platforms just to start connecting with students.  And no one wants to infringe upon security of students but when teachers are being told 'you are being paid so you have to teach all day' you bet they are just trying to do the best they can given conflicting messages from every direction.[/quote]

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