Ed Markey: “we do not have to look any further than the recent data breaches at the Government Office of Personnel Management…”

“we do not have to look any further than the recent data breaches at the Government Office of Personnel Management, Target, Home Depot, Sony, Neiman Marcus, and countless others to know there are pitfalls to the rush to store our personal, sensitive data online. And there is no information more personal and more sensitive than that of school-aged children. The business of sifting through and storing the records of grade school and high school students is growing as fast as students are. By collecting personal information about students' test results and learning abilities, teachers may find better ways to educate their students. We can help improve their test scores, improve academic achievement, and prepare students for the future. The increased use of data analysis of student performance holds promise for increasing student achievement, but at the same time there are perils from a privacy perspective. Putting the sensitive information of students in the hands of third parties and private sector companies raises a number of very serious questions about the privacy rights of parents and their children. The information being collected is about students as young as 5 years old. As a nation, we have already decided that children require extra protection, and that is why in the House of Representatives I was the principal author of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, which is what it is called.…”