Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds....Like the Army's?

What is the Learning Registry gathering and sharing?

Why is the Department of Defense partially funding the Learning Registry?

The practice of iris scans being taken on children for "bus information and safety" was confirmed by the Polk County Board of Education.  These scans were performed and parental consent was not asked for nor given before the scans took place.  The company has assured parents the information has been destroyed but how does a parent know if this is true?  If information is sent to the cloud or stored elsewhere electronically, is it ever eliminated completely?  Who/what has access to this student biometric information?  Is there a digital footprint (or eye scan) student dossier hovering somewhere?

Gathering of biometric information and storing it in the cloud is not confined to the education industry.  The Army is also utilizing iris scans for data.  From Army’s Fingerprint and Iris Databases Head for the Cloud:

The next time U.S. soldiers snap a picture of your eye or scan your face, they’re likely to store all that personal, physical data in the cloud. 

The Army’s Intelligence command recently awarded a sole-source contract to bring the classified Defense Cross-Domain Analytical Capability, a database storing various kinds of security-relevant information the Army collects, onto the proverbial “cloud” of distributed servers and networks. Among the focuses of the project: “integrating Biometrics into the cloud,” according to a description of the contract.

The effort “involves the Entity management and tracking system for Biometrics/Human Terrain Facial recognition capability (photos, video) and edge-to-Cloud Enterprise Messaging (Corps/Division Node to/from Handheld,” says the Army Intelligence and Security Command. “Human Terrain” refers to an Army program in Iraq and Afghanistan that sought to map unfamiliar tribal networks and other social structures. Integrating that into an intelligence database is a major shift, but more on that in a second. 

"Human Terrain" might be an apt name for tracking students as well.  Student iris scans and fingerprinting provides unique identifiers for students ostensibly for safety and speed of lunch lines.  But how else could biometric information be used in the future?  Could it be used for intelligence purposes or for other tracking purposes?  Could students be part of a "targeting cycle" in the future? 

...the military is into biometrics in a big way. It’s created and maintained biometrics databases containing literally millions of iris and fingerprint scans from Iraqis and Afghans. The Iraq database has outlasted the Iraq war: it resides permanently at U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

Evidently unsatisfied with the clunky ViewFinder-esque mobile tools for collecting biometric data in the field, in February the Pentagon inked a $3 million research deal with California’s AOptix to check out its smartphone-based biometric identifier, built on an iPhone and iOS. Then there’s all the Pentagon’s additional research into identifying people by the unique pungencies of their body odor and the ways they walk.

It’s worth noting that the architects of the Army’s star-crossed “human terrain” mapping, a much-criticized attempt at warzone anthropology, swore up and down that their interviews with tribal leaders had nothing to do with gathering intelligence. That distinction had much to do with the distaste many anthropologists had with working alongside the military, but architects Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro said they weren’t spying because they weren’t part of the military’s “targeting cycle.”

“[G]iven the vast collection and reporting effort that supports lethal targeting, using HTS [the Human Terrain System] to fulfill this function would be redundant and duplicative,” they wrote in 2012. (.PDF) “Whereas [human intelligence] requires highly specific information about individuals in order to capture or kill, social science, as practiced in HTS, seeks broad contextual information for nonlethal purposes.”

The biometric information for the Army identifies adversaries but using this information for social science purposes requires broad contextual information to be valid.  Think about the combining of student iris scans/fingerprints/ healthcare information with educational/personal information data tracking.  Will the 400 plus points National Education Data Model data set be combined with student biometric information?  

Does this Army scanning and fingerprinting align itself with the educational practice of student tracking?  There is a relationship between the Learning Registry and the Department of Defense:

The Learning Registry is a joint effort of the Department of Education and the Department of Defense, with support of the White House and numerous federal agencies, non-profit organizations, international organizations and private companies.

Key members of the collaboration are:

• The Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) from Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R)
  
• The Office of Educational Technology at the US Department of Education

This effort, begun in 2010, is creating a set of technical protocols as a platform for innovation by content authors and aggregators. Applications built to harness the power of harvesting and analyzing the Learning Registry data will allow educators to quickly find content specific to their unique needs. The Learning Registry will store more than traditional descriptive data (metadata)--it will also allow sharing of ratings, comments, downloads, standards alignment, etc.
This effort has been driven by a call for increased openness, sharing and use of digital learning resources as described in both the National Education Technology Plan and National Broadband Plan. The specifications have been developed to support learning organizations from across all education sectors.

What is the Learning Registry?

The Learning Registry is a new approach to capturing, sharing, and analyzing learning resource data to broaden the usefulness of digital content to benefit educators and learners.

The Learning Registry is not a website or repository… it's not a search engine… and it's not a replacement for the excellent sources of online learning content that already exist…

The Learning Registry is an open source technical system designed to facilitate the exchange of data behind the scenes, and an open community of resource creators, publishers, curators, and consumers who are collaborating to broadly share resources, as well as information about how those resources are used by educators in diverse learning environments across the Web.

Is this why FERPA regulations needed to be changed by Arne Duncan?  If the Department of Defense is contributing to an educational system of data gathering, wouldn't the DOD want access to determine the effectiveness of the system?  Do you think it would also want access to the data?  Will your child's data eventually be stored at the US Central Command in Tampa?  Did parents ever give consent for any of this biometric information be taken from their children?


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Logue, G (June 2013). "Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds...Like the Army's?".  Retrieved (date) from the Missouri Education Watchdog site: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/

 

Who Benefits From Data Collection?

"These datasets have been gathered from various agencies to provide detailed information on the state of education on all levels, from cradle to career and beyond. - Education Data Community" 

You are your digital footprint.

Almost a year ago the White House released a fact sheet UNLOCKING THE POWER OF EDUCATION DATA FOR ALL AMERICANS. The three page document contains the commitments of various partners to collect data on every student in America and make it as easy to access as possible for as many interested parties as possible. Ok, they may not have phrased it that way, but if you read what they wrote, that clearly is the intent.

What has been committed?

Federal Student Aid (FSA) commits to providing a "MyData download button to allow students to download their own data into a simple, machine-readable file that they could share – at their own discretion – with third parties that develop helpful consumer tools."

The goal is for you to hand out your personal information to application developers who will use it to make education products to sell. The most important thing is for other machines to be able to read your data, that means collect it and incorporate it into their own databases. They don't say why you would want to voluntarily give your data away so someone else can make money off of it, but at least the government won't be the one sharing the data. They have just made it easy for you to do so.

Who are these third parties you may want to share your data with?  Let's look at the next participant, the Department of Defense. Yes DoDEA (Education Activity) will also be using the MyData Button. "This download capability is a simple concept -- parents would be able to download their own children's school information in a common, interoperable [there's that reference to machine readable again] format at any time, and any place by clicking a button on a secured website hosted by DoDEA." (emphasis added) Why would DoD be so concerned about families having access to their student data?  "Parents with such access can better plan for and manage their children's educational needs, particularly during school transitions."  Isn't that great. The Department of Defense is worried about student stress when you move. And we can be sure it's secure because the Chinese have never succeeded in hacking the DoD systems.

The Fact Sheet also refers to the Learning Registry which is a "joint effort of the Department of Education and the Department of Defense, with support of the White House and numerous federal agencies, non-profit organizations, international organizations and private companies."  This is a database of education tools that purports to be for the benefit of teachers to show what resources are effective and what works over time.

Who partners in the Learning Registry?

ADL Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) from Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R)

SRI International which " brings its research and development innovations to the marketplace by licensing its intellectual property and creating new ventures. SRI’s 2011 revenues were approximately $585 million." Using all the data that students and teachers provide for free, SRI will no doubt increase that bottom line by a few hundred million.

Lockheed Martin "is the largest provider of IT services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. Government." They describe their business as "global security, aerospace, and information technology." The masters of global security and IT services is taking on student education databases. I feel safer already.

National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is the National Science Foundation's online library of resources and collections for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. "The primary goal of the NSDL Math Common Core Collection project is to explore new processes for associating digital learning objects with educational standards."

Navigation North who provides "a critical body of research, analysis and writing to create the Technology Strategy Framework and Planning Documents for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Common Core)"

Is the connection between the student database and Common Core becoming any clearer for folks now?

Butte County (CA) Office of Education/CADRE - "is a team of education technology professionals that specialize in the design and development of digital resources supporting various educational P-20 initiatives." While I think of the P-20 initiatives as a terrible government invasion of privacy and a dangerous practice which puts too much information in a single set of hands, CADRE views their work as "A place where resources and practice are intentionally coupled with technology and meaningful design in order to improve the skills of those who are shaping our children's intellect
We are attempting to forge the space where perspectives and insights can be focused on effectively educating students that is open, unbiased, and unfiltered. Where the role of the practitioner is valued and the needs of the children they support are held reverent." Their vision is admirable but I'm not sure they have put their trust in the right place. 

Lastly there are the Data Locker partners.

Microsoft which commits to creating a cloud-based platform for a Lifelong Learning Record (LLR). The same folks who gave us the HealthVault, you know that computer system that your doctor now pays more attention to than you when you are in an exam room, is now going to turn their sites on education.  This can only be good for us, right?  "Developers and partners will be able to use the open, cross-platform HealthVault application programming interface (API) to build “apps” in support of individual learners, facilitating an ecosystem of services that help students not only manage their lifelong learning profile, but also use it in novel ways—for example, automatically demonstrating proof of competency in a work setting, or earning academic achievements and reputation points with peers."

I hope colleges pay attention to that last bit because, you see, that is what colleges do right now. They provide proof of competency to employers through academic achievements. Microsoft doesn't seem to think they should have a monopoly on that.

Teachers should also pay attention because Microsoft wants to help learners by providing an entire "ecosystem of services" that they can choose from to "manage their lifelong learning profile." Since Microsoft does not have physical campuses and is THE powerhouse in digital products, it would be logical to assume that these services will only be available digitally. Think Common Cartridge. If we use the Learning Registry to identify the best teaching practices, then provide those teaching moments digitally, how many actual teachers do we really need?

Parchment, another Data Locker partner, takes it a step further promising to "unleash education credentials by unlocking the critical data they embody."  They plan to use the "MyData Button" to "put [student's] education data to work in their personal credential account." Kind makes the threat "this will go on your permanent record young man" have a lot more impact, doesn't it? Parchment's goal is universal standardization of this format which, just ask Apple, means control of this market.

Throughout the Fact Sheet each entity promises secure data. But anyone with just a little bit of tech savvy knows that data security is the unicorn of IT. There's no such thing. A system is only as strong as it's weakest link. A system that promises any parent access anywhere at any time has a weakness. A system which the Department of Education has promised to share with other government agencies is only as strong as the least qualified, conscientious or scrupulous employee who is given access to it. But I guess as long as everyone PROMISES to keep the data secure then it will be ok.