Wappingers School Officials Say Student Data Is Safe

WAPPINGERS, N.Y. -- Wappingers school officials say they have found no evidence that a Google app is compromising student privacy, according to a post on the district’s website.

Students in kindergarten through the 12th grade have access to Chromebooks and the setting Google Sync, which allows them to conduct research among other things, the Wappingers Central School District says.
Photo Credit: *Facebook*

Carol Reif

01/15/2016 3:30 p.m.

Local students in kindergarten through the 12th Grade have access to about 1,000 Chromebooks, all of which have a setting called Google Sync, the school district said.

According to district officials, the setting allows students to conduct research, bookmark important sources, and customize user settings and preferences across multiple devices.

Google Apps for Education ( GAFE) is a suite of devices that are provided to educational institutions at no cost and are guaranteed to be free of advertisements, school officials said.

The district has not, they said, experienced any “advertisement pop-ups” associated with the use of Google products, including email.

The district said it felt compelled to address the issue after advocates for student privacy raised concerns about the power of data-sharing tools and their rapid adoption by school districts.

According to the district, the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) last November introduced a student privacy pledge to safeguard student information.

Google, and other companies, have signed on with the pledge, Wappingers officials said.

The pledge was endorsed by President Obama, the National PTA, and the National School Boards Association, the school district said.

However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) responded by filing a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission claiming that Google was violating the privacy pledge.

The EFF's complaint focuses on how Google tracks and builds behavioral profiles on students when they navigate to Google-operated sites outside of Google Apps for Education.

The focus of the controversy is Google Sync, a setting that school districts can turn on or off, Wappingers officials said.

The Wappingers school district contacted Google asking for further information about data gathered when the Google Sync setting is enabled. Google responded by assuring the district that it was firmly committed to keeping student information “private and secure.”

Disabling this setting will, school officials said, “stymie the ease of use that GAFE and chromebooks have brought” to the district.

To read the school district’s post, where there are links to the various responses and complaints, click here.

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