{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Margin of Thought with Priten","title":"Who Is Protecting Student Privacy Right Now? - Cody Venzke","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2528,"description":"In this episode, Priten speaks with Cody Venzke, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, about who is actually protecting student privacy when the law has not caught up to the technology. They walk through what FERPA and COPPA do and don't cover, the limits of \"FERPA compliant\" as a marketing claim, how AI surveillance tools are being deployed in schools without adequate vetting, and where parents and teachers can apply pressure when federal law leaves gaps.Key Takeaways:FERPA was written for filing cabinets, not cloud platforms. Passed in 1974, FERPA still grants parents a right to access every record a school maintains about their child, including data held by ed tech vendors. But it has never been enforced by the Department of Education, and individuals cannot sue under it, which leaves most of the work to proactive parents.\"FERPA compliant\" on a vendor website is a marketing slogan. There is no Department of Education certification program. The obligation falls on schools to ensure their vendors actually limit data use to educational purposes, and parents should ask schools how they define \"school official\" and what contracts allow.COPPA stops at the thirteenth birthday. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act applies only to sites directed at children under 13, leaving teenagers in what Venzke describes as a regulatory wild west. The ACLU argues that data minimization and affirmative consent should be extended to everyone, not gated by age.Flat bans on minors using social media will likely lose in court. The Supreme Court has held that minors' First Amendment rights are largely coterminous with adults'. Venzke predicts that age-based bans will be struck down as overbroad, and argues that regulating how platforms collect and use data is a more constitutionally durable approach than restricting speech.School AI surveillance is being deployed without testing. Facial recognition, weapons detection, and communication...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/mIvclI2fK-fQrurJTjPiYoTWWGoNWSdbv1_-Xa6ULdc/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yOTNk/OTcyZTcxOWE5MGIw/ZTY0MjU4ZGNlN2U5/NjM3My5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}