SOPIPA, Student Online Personal Information Protection Act, was put into place in California to protect the privacy of student data against the industry. Companies have been targeting advertisements at students and selling it to 3rd party vendors for non-educational purposes. This is now considered not just unethical, but thanks to SOPIPA, illegal.
I think first and foremost, school leaders and teachers need to be made aware of SOPIPA and then educated on it. Within my own school or district I would ask that it be made an agenda item at one of our board or staff meetings. Once everyone has been made aware of SOPIPA I would encourage teachers and staff to look at the technology they are using and start to research which programs and applications are SOPIPA compliant. This could be a task divided among the staff using a shared data page or spreadsheet. The staff would need to determine the level of advertising that the students are exposed to using different programs and what is happening with that data. The administration and staff should also review all existing agreements with subcontractors and consider amending existing and/or future contracts to require subcontractors to comply with SOPIPA.
I think first and foremost, school leaders and teachers need to be made aware of SOPIPA and then educated on it. Within my own school or district I would ask that it be made an agenda item at one of our board or staff meetings. Once everyone has been made aware of SOPIPA I would encourage teachers and staff to look at the technology they are using and start to research which programs and applications are SOPIPA compliant. This could be a task divided among the staff using a shared data page or spreadsheet. The staff would need to determine the level of advertising that the students are exposed to using different programs and what is happening with that data. The administration and staff should also review all existing agreements with subcontractors and consider amending existing and/or future contracts to require subcontractors to comply with SOPIPA.