MONTGOMERY MD PARENTS ASK, IS OUR CHILDREN’S PRIVACY SAFE WHEN THEY USE GOOGLE CLASSROOM?
Many districts are now using Google classroom and Chromebooks for remote instruction while schools are closed. Below is a sample letter for Montgomery County (MD) Safe Tech Subcommittee of MCCPTA’s Health and Safety Committee, that they are encouraging parents to send to their district to ensure their children’s privacy while using this program.
As MCPS diligently works on distribution of Chromebooks for remote learning should school be closed longer than two weeks, I, along with the MCCPTA Safe Technology subcommittee, urge MCPS to take important precautions to protect our children’s personally identifying information as part of the roll-out. Here’s why:
As you know, we’ve been trying for over half a year to secure verification from Google that our student’s data has been deleted in accordance with the Data Deletion Day policy we worked with MCPS to develop. Without any visibility into the contracts between MCPS and Google, we have no idea what Google’s obligations are with regard to our student’s data: whether, how, and when they share and use this data.
Further, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office filed a lawsuit against Google for deceptive trade practices in terms of how it collects, shares and uses student’s personal data. The suit alleges that “children are being monitored by one of the largest data mining companies in the world [Google], at school, at home, on mobile devices, without their knowledge and without the permission of CONTINUE READING: Montgomery MD parents ask, is our children’s privacy safe when they use Google classroom? | Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
