Seattle Schools Community Forum

Several troubling things have happened over the last several months that relate to data privacy and the Technology Department. The first is, of course, the huge data breach by Sped/Legal (no one will take responsibility here so I don't know who to name) in releasing student data about every Sped student in the district (as well as some Gen Ed students at Roosevelt High School). I am dismayed by both the district and Board reactions.  I get why they want to believe this is just some isolated incident and wasn't a "true" data breach (meaning, some outside hacker got the data).  The problem is that it IS the district's job to protect that data, in both big and small ways. Then there is the issue of a data breach at Ballard High School in late December.  Principal Keven Wyncoop sent home a letter to parents that said it happened on Dec. 8th 2014 with student transcripts from the senior class being sent by a counselor via e-mail to a Ballard high parent AND the ...

From the Washington Post . The personal information of almost 100,000 people seeking their high school transcripts was recently exposed on a Web site that helps students obtain their records. The site, NeedMyTranscript.com, facilitates requests from all 50 states and covers more than 18,000 high schools around the country, according to its Web site and company chief executive officer. The data included names, addresses, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, mothers' maiden names and the last four digits of the users' Social Security numbers. Although there is no evidence the data were stolen, privacy advocates say the availability of such basic personal information heightens the risk of identity theft. The availability of the data appears to be the result of a flaw in the way the two-year-old site was designed. It highlights how easily sensitive personal information can be exposed with the proliferation of online businesses and servi...

The Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions committee) is negotiating over the re-authorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act.  We were told that there are Democrats on the committee who are pushing for relaxing limits on access to personal student data, and are saying that researchers should be able to obtain open-ended access to complete student data sets– and that they shouldn’t have to even specify which specific student level data they want for what purposes. Please call Senator Patty Murray, who is a senior member of the HELP committee, and let her know strong controls and oversight of student data are important to you. It is especially important that parents/advocates who live in the states represented by Dems below call on Monday. Senator Murray's D.C. office:   (toll-free) 866-481-9186