Seeking to Prevent the State from Sharing Sensitive Student Data

Recently, I heard from a number of constituents who were very disturbed to read in a Reuters article that the New York State Education Department (NYSED) plans to share confidential student information with the non-profit corporation inBloom Inc., with which the agency contracted to provide a K-12 student database. The article noted that for-profit tech companies and other commercial vendors could have access to this data, and that the company “cannot guarantee the security of the information stored.” I immediately reached out to New York State’s Education Commissioner to clarify these plans and to urge that our State not proceed with any initiatives that could compromise the privacy of our public school students and their families. Please see below my letter to the Commissioner following up on the call, in which I both echo the specific requests made by the parents who had contacted me and propose critical new safeguards for sensitive student data.