An Ohio Department of Education program that will record personal information on the state’s 1.8 million students is raising red flags among privacy advocates.
The state’s Student Identifier System will generate a record of every student and assign each a unique number. This will allow the state track academic performance and mobility within the school system, and will link accountability for academic performance with each school, according to Department of Education spokesperson J.C. Benton.
The student identifier would be generated by PriceWaterhouseCooper, which will coordinate the $4.3 million database project. Once a student is given an identifier, the number – without the name — is turned back to the state, which appends a variety of information to the number, including the year the age of the child, the child’s year in school, the mother’s maiden name, and the year the child entered the district.
“There are state of the art security measures to assure that no data is given to inappropriate people,” Benton said.
The problem, according to privacy advocates, is that technology can outstrip public policy.
“As it becomes increasingly easy to collect and cross index information, it becomes necessary to approach requests for information with a healthy degree of skepticism,” Raymond Vasvari, legal director for the Ohio branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said.
Vasvari continued, “There are guidelines in place under the Family Education Right to Privacy Act. The problem is that we have seen school districts in the past cross the line and disclose information for commercial benefit.”
