The Obama administration briefly considered but ultimately decided against expanding a new student privacy bill beyond K-12 education, according to sources with knowledge of the drafting process. The resulting draft is a "missed opportunity" for the White House to address privacy in higher education, legal scholars say.
The Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015, which will be introduced later this week by U.S. House Representatives Luke Messer and Jared S. Polis, seeks to limit how educational technology companies can use data they collect from students using their products. It builds on a proposal released by the White House in January, which in turn resembles a student privacy law passed in California last year.
The bill was supposed to be filed on Monday, but by the end of the day, lawmakers were "still working through some of the technical nuances of the bill," a spokeswoman for Messer said in an email. Those involving in drafting the bill -- a joint effort between the White House and the two representatives -- were reportedly asking for outside input as recently as this past weekend, suggesting a difficult balancing act between concerns raised by privacy advocates and pressure from the private sector.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/25/federal-privacy-bill-missed-opportunity-obama-administration-legal-scholars-say