Facebook Privacy = Student Privacy. It's the Same Issue. Where's the Outrage over the Longitudinal Data System? The Argument is the Same. Your Privacy is YOURS. Your Data is Not Your Employer's and not the Government's.

Facebook put out a statement about privacy as employers have started demanding Facebook passwords from prospective employees.  Why are Americans so concerned about this issue while a breathtaking invasive data gathering is occurring in the public schools...for children from birth to death?

We've changed a few words here and there to illustrate the importance of understanding how the Department of Education is eliminating student privacy rights in public programs via the Longitudinal Data System...and providing prospective employers and various governmental agencies information such as your voting status, eye color, religious affiliation and over 300 other data sets.  You can delete a Facebook account.  You can't delete the data sets required by the Federal government to attend public school or to receive public services.

If it's not okay for employers to ask about Facebook information, why is it permissible for the Federal Government to gather data on students JUST BECAUSE they are in public school?

Following is an altered statement from Facebook (changes relating to education vs Facebook concerns noted in all caps) to illustrate the protection needed for public education students against the Federal government...and how the argument is really the same. Private or governmental agencies should not have a right to personal data information for employment and/or educational/governmental services.

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Protecting Your Privacy (OR NOT)

In recent months, we’ve seen a distressing increase in reports of employers or others seeking to gain inappropriate access to people’s EDUCATIONAL profiles or private information.  This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.  It also potentially exposes the EDUCATIONAL FACILITY WHICH seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.

The most alarming of these practices is the reported incidences of EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS asking STUDENTS AND FAMILIES to reveal their PERSONAL DATA.  If you are a PUBLIC EDUCATION STUDENT, PREVIOUSLY you never HAD to share HIGHLY PERSONAL DATA, let anyone access your PERSONAL DATA (THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED "PERSONAL"), or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your DATA or violate the privacy of your FAMILY.  We have NOT worked really hard at THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION to give STUDENTS/FAMILIES the tools to control who sees PERSONAL DATA information.

As a user, you PREVIOUSLY  HAD NOT BEEN forced to share EXTENSIVE private information and communications just to get a job OR RECEIVE AN EDUCATION.  And as PUBLIC EDUCATION STUDENT, you PREVIOUSLY DID NOT have to worry that your private information or communications WOULD be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that YOU WERE looking for a job OR ATTENDING PUBLIC SCHOOL.  That’s why THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SHOULD make it a violation of LAW AND INSTITUTE A Statement of Rights and Responsibilities  THAT IT IS ILLEGAL to share or solicit PERSONAL STUDENT DATA ON BEHALF OF FEDERAL AGENCIES OR PRIVATE RESEARCH COMPANIES.

We DO think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their PERSONAL DATA because we DO think it’s the right thing to do, AND IN FACT, THAT IS WHY WE INSTITUTED THE P20 PIPELINE TO TRACK YOUR DATA.  But it also may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating.  For example, if an employer sees on A DATA SET that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc., RACIAL GROUP, DISABILITY GROUP, POLITICAL GROUP, RELIGIOUS GROUP) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don’t hire that person.

Employers also may not have the proper policies and training for reviewers to handle private information.  If they don’t—and actually, even if they do--the employer may assume liability for the protection of the information they have seen or for knowing what responsibilities may arise based on different types of information (e.g. if the information suggests the commission of a crime).

THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND THIS SCHOOL SHOULD take your privacy seriously.  WE SHOULD take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges.

While we SHOULD (BUT PRESENTLY ARE NOT DOING) TO continue to do our part, it is important that everyone IN A PUBLICLY FUNDED SCHOOL understands they SHOULD have a right to keep their PERSONAL DATA to themselves (AS A RIGHT TO PRIVACY), and we PRESENTLY ARE NOT DOING our best to protect that right, IN FACT, WE ARE INTENT ON TRACKING YOU FROM BIRTH TO DEATH AND PROVIDING THIS DATA TO EVERY FEDERAL GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY.

-- DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, Chief Privacy Officer, Policy, AND ARNE DUNCAN, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION