Data privacy expert Amelia Vance spoke at last week’s meeting of the P20 council - a group tasked with aligning Delaware’s education efforts across all grade levels.
The council is also charged with oversight of data governance.
Vance updated the council on national trends in student data privacy legislation. She says Delaware is ahead of most states on the issue.
“The nice thing is that the Delaware law addresses they key concern of so many parents and privacy advocates which is the role of third parties in holding student data: so the fact that the law really regulates what student data can be held by third parties,” Vance said.
Delaware’s Student Data Privacy Protection Act was signed into law last August, banning advertising to students and collection of student profiles.
The Delaware law also sets up a Student Data Privacy task force to study the issue and to provide recommendations for improved security.
Vance added that the biggest danger when it comes to data security is human error: which is at the root of over 90 percent of data security issues. She’s encouraging Delaware to hold educator trainings on security issues.
State Board of Education Executive Director Donna Johnson says the council is looking at adding such training to educator prep programs.
“That’s the discussion that we need to start having: how do we bring that into the educator preparation programs," Johnson said. "We already have certain requirements around all of those ed-prep programs, so how do we engage all of the ed-prep programs in developing what this type of training would look like?”
The council will meet with educational institutions as well as the state’s Department of Education to work on developing policies to be implemented by the 2017-18 school year.
