During the last days of session, the Assembly passes two bills to protect student privacy; Senate fails to act
In the last few days of the legislative session, two bills to protect student privacy were approved by the NY Assembly: A.7872, introduced by Education Chair Cathy Nolan, which would allow parents to opt out of their children’s personal identifiable information from being shared with third parties, and A.6059A, introduced earlier by Assemblymember O'Donnell, that would block re-disclosures (as inBloom plans to do) to third parties without parental consent. Unfortunately, the Senate did not act on either of these bills, or a similar bill to protect student privacy, introduced by Senator Grisanti, S.4284, that had strong bipartisan support.
At this juncture,the NY State Education Department continues to ignore the protests of parents and the concerns elected officials, and is going ahead with a risky and unethical plan to share the most confidential, sensitive information of New York state’s public school students with inBloom Inc., to be uploaded onto a
