What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that.
For most of us, “data” is invisible. We can’t see the bits of data being collected and shared and tracked about us when we are online. We can’t see who is collecting this data, or who is watching what we do when we are online. How can you know if a school’s online vendor or company is complying with their data privacy policy or your school’s contract? There’s an app (or two) for that.
Disclaimer: Neither the author or MEW are promoting the use of these apps, neither has any ties to said privacy apps. We do not stand to make money from telling you about these apps. There may be other apps or similar products available. This is merely a public service, so that you, the public, can be more informed and perhaps take what you find to your school board or legislator as evidence of online data collected and shared.
Lightbeam (Free. Anyone can use.)
Lightbeam will create a record of events for every site you visit
and every third party site that is stored locally on your browser.
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Think of Lightbeam as showing third party vendors who may have been contracted to analyze or package your data.
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Step by step Lightbeam instructions, via Graphite on the Common Sense privacy and security website:
* Install Firefox browser if you haven’t already done so
* Disable all ad blockers and other defensive protections that we use when browsing the web. These tools are great when we’re working online, but can actually block issues we need to see when testing.
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With the above preparations in place:
1. Login to a website you would like to test, (ie: We logged in to an educational website using a student account. We could see what third parties are accessing / using data from this student account.) Lightbeam will record all calls to any third party trackers.
2. Once logged onto the website/application you are testing, navigate to any pages where a person can add information and/or connect to an What data is that website or online vendor collecting? There’s an app for that. – Missouri Education Watchdog:
