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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

NYC Public School Parents: Parent power wins! NY severs its relationship with inBloom, which has no known clients left; but the threat to student privacy remains

NYC Public School Parents: Parent power wins! NY severs its relationship with inBloom, which has no known clients left; but the threat to student privacy remains:



Parent power wins! NY severs its relationship with inBloom, which has no known clients left; but the threat to student privacy remains

This morning, Stephanie Simon of Politico Pro reports that indeed, after a long battle, the NY State Education Department has finally agreed to sever its relationship with inBloom and will ask them to delete all the student data already stored on its cloud.  This was the clear intent of the state budget bill approved on Monday, and marks the end of a long battle that started when the Regents approved this egregious contract in December 2011.

This also means that inBloom has NO known clients left, as Stephanie points out (contrary to the credulous article in the WSJ recently.)

" Massachusetts is still officially considering a contract with the nonprofit, but a state education department spokesman said it was unlikely to proceed. Illinois no longer plans to upload large amounts of data, though individual districts may participate; inBloom won’t say whether any have agreed to do so."

In state after state, district after district, the original nine partner states of inBloom have cancelled their contracts, after protests from parents, teachers, and voters to get rid of this data-engorging monster, an $100