Student Privacy & the School Library

Student Privacy & the School Library - Educators need to be aware of the 3 Federal laws—FERPA, COPPA, and CIPA—regarding student rights & privacy. But, School Librarians must also apply student privacy as it relates to intellectual freedom and freedom of access in the school library. FREE download: Internet Laws In A Nutshell. #NoSweatLibraryIn this age of measureless digital information and ubiquitous electronic access, it’s important for educators, including school librarians, to be aware of the 3 Federal laws governing student rights and privacy, especially regarding online access: FERPA, COPPA, and CIPA.

ABOUT FERPA

FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, has been around since 1974. It’s purpose is to protect the privacy of a student’s education records. It’s impact on us as educators is that it gives us permission to publish student work and photos, but without last names or any personally identifiable information.

Between September and December of 2016, the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC) conducted focus groups regarding teacher training on student privacy. They discovered that, while schools and districts encourage the use of technology applications, there was wide variation on vetting what teachers can use in their classrooms, with ‘free’ resources often left to the teacher’s discretion. With that in mind, it’s especially important for educators to consider COPPA.

ABOUT COPPA

COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, took effect in 2000, and forbids websites from collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 unless they obtain verifiable parental permission. It’s why websites ask for birth dates to create an account and many refuse to create one if the applicant is under age 13 (so they don’t have to verify parent permission). In rulings since 2013, personal information also includes videos, audio files, and geolocation that can identify a child. (NOTE: COPPA is not COPA, the Act regarding pornography that never became law.)

COPPA also allows under-age-13 students to use secured online services contracted by the state/district, such as Gaggle student email or Google Apps for Education. Also, COPPA permits schools to act as “agents” for parents, which means they can get signed permission slips from parents so students can register for a public online service—if you do this, be sure your school/district has written parent permission!

I vehemently discourage students from using a fake birth year to create online accounts—it’s breaking the law! My online Library Lessons for below-8g students only use contract services or public sites that don’t need them to create accounts.

ABOUT CIPA

CIPA, the Children’s Internet Protection Act, enacted in 2000 and administered by the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission, covers the e-rate discount for schools; it requires filters against harmful content and restricts disclosure of a minor’s personal information. CIPA was augmented by the Broadband Data Improvement Act (2008) and by the FCC (2011) to incorporate the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act-Subtitle A: Promoting a Safe Internet for Children. Those direct the FTC to create a national public awareness campaign about safe Internet use by children and requires schools to educate students about Internet safety, including student privacy.

Download a FREE 2-page PDF of
Internet Laws In A Nutshell
to hand out to your colleagues.
Image link to Internet Laws in a Nutshell: FERPA, COPPA, CIPA handout - Download this free 2-page PDF to hand out to teachers. #NoSweatLibrary

SCHOOL LIBRARIES & STUDENT PRIVACY

How Student Privacy Applies to School Libraries & Student Reading - Student privacy protects their freedom to read what they want from the school library, and School Librarians are obligated to keep confidential the books a student has checked out. Read more about student privacy... #NoSweatLibraryMost educators think of student privacy in terms of student grades or publishing class photos, but a school librarian must approach student privacy in a unique way because student privacy is inextricably linked with intellectual freedom and freedom to access information.

  • Intellectual freedom is the right to freely publish personal creations in any media format. Should we treat a child’s intellectual freedom for expression the same as we would an adult’s? Just as we monitor the language (verbal and written) and the behavior of young ones in our schools, so too, educators often act in loco parentis to constrain public products that reflect inappropriate youthful expressions; however, we need to be careful that our “editing” of blog posts, webpages, videos, and other online products is truly monitoring and not censorship.
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  • Freedom of access is a person’s right to obtain and read, view, or listen to media without restraint, and this includes what students choose from the school library. Student privacy protects this right, so librarians do not divulge any of the books a student has checked out, except to a parent. (To protect student privacy, my district’s library automation system only keeps track of current checkouts—once an item is returned, it’s removed from the student’s record.)
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    Conversely, school librarians have a responsibility to choose print & online resources that support the state/district curriculum, so we are in the precarious position of using negative selection policies, not necessarily as filtering or censorship, but because funds must be spent advantageously according to the age and literacy of students.
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  • Filtering freedom of access for a child depends on where the access takes place. In a public library all information is available to the general public, and, while resources are organized to minimize psychological danger to children, it is necessarily the parent’s duty, not the library’s, to monitor what the child reads, hears or views. The situation changes in the public school setting: schools are regarded as in loco parentis to act for the best interests of the child, and CIPA law requires filtering of online access for schools to qualify for a discounted e-rate.

Padlock around Earth representing Internet FilteringTim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web and the man who has had such an impact on our lives, shares his thoughts on filtering in his book Weaving the Web (HarperCollins, 1999):

A nation’s laws can restrict content only in that country; filters can block content no matter where it comes from on the Web. Most important, filters block content for users who object to it without removing the material from the Web. It remains available to those who want to see it. (p.125) An individual clearly has the personal right to filter anything that comes at him, just as he would do with regular mail. (p.134)

TEACHING INTERNET SAFETY & STUDENT PRIVACY

Striking a balance between productive online classroom activities and keeping students’ safe online can be a challenge, especially inculcating into students the need to protect their privacy. I discovered that, while schools are required by CIPA to teach Internet Safety, the U.S. government provides FREE materials with which to do so. All government information falls under public domain so we can use it however we wish. The FTC’s Internet safety website—onguardonline.gov—provides videos and materials for presentations, as well as free handouts such as booklets, brochures, and worksheets, which can be ordered from their website. The Department of Homeland Security’s Stop-Think-Connect campaign also provides free materials on their website—dhs.gov/stopthinkconnect. I use different handouts for each grade level, and at the start of every school year I order enough copies for all the students in my school.

School Librarians Can Teach Student Privacy with Digital Citizenship - Download my FREE Digital Citizenship Lesson Planner for a list of resources & materials to teach student privacy and other digital citizenship topics. Visit my site & find FREE Librarian Resources on the menu bar! #NoSweatLibraryI reiterate, these materials are free, so I encourage you to order them, as well as other free materials provided by government-sponsored organizations, such as the National Cyber Security Alliance at staysafeonline.org, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at netsmartz.org, and Common Sense Media at commonsensemedia.org. All 5 websites have valuable pointers on how to teach online safety to various ages of children, resources to use in presentations, and videos and games for different age groups.

At the start of each school year, my first 6g lesson using online resources helps students generate a password that will protect their privacy. StaySafeOnline has a wonderful lesson about this, along with free posters to hang in the library and computer labs: CyberSmart! Classroom Materials: Password Security Activity and Posters

Password Protection Posters from StaySafeOnline.org

Throughout the school year I have Library Lessons on Internet safety and student privacy related to whatever online activity we are pursuing. Additionally, October is National Cyber Security Month, sponsored by the Dept. of Homeland Security, and January 28 is Data Privacy Day, both of which offer opportunities for school librarians to focus the entire school on Internet Safety. My Internet Safety Lessons with my middle school students address 3 different issues, one of which is Student Privacy. My privacy lesson for 6g focuses on protecting personal information when using the WWW:

WWW questions for personal information privacy

For the student privacy part of the 7g lesson I use materials from the FTC, beginning with a video, Net Cetera: Protection Connection, and then focusing students’ blossoming social awareness on socializing online.

Now that so many students have smartphones, the student privacy lesson for 8g students addresses online and phone phishing, and cautions about phone apps which can access personal information.

The combination of a yearly whole-school Internet Safety month and short relevant lessons throughout the school year, all customized for any online tool being used and the maturity/grade level of students, provides my middle school students with an ongoing focus on, and a deep understanding of, student privacy issues. I believe they are well-prepared to safely navigate “The Cloud” and for the new challenges they’ll face in high school.

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4 thoughts on “Student Privacy & the School Library

  1. I really enjoy your posts and all you share! I have taken many of the sites you’ve posted about here and saved them in a Symbaloo so I can share them with teachers and use them myself. Thank you for explaining the federal laws that go along with the issue of Student Privacy and reminders about what that includes. You always do such a great job of being thorough and making me think about my programs. Love that your Internet Safety is a year-long learning program as it should be. There is so much for our young people (and ourselves) to know about online safety. Thank you!

    • Alicia, thank you for such an upbuilding comment. I’d love to have your Symbaloo link! I’ve wanted to create something like that for my digital citizenship stuff for quite awhile, but just never seem to find time to do it.

  2. I will definitely be coming back to this post, especially in regard to creating complex passwords (showing them visually) and then the WWW for asking for personal information.

    Thank you for the in-depth post.

    • Thanks for you comment, Alicia. If you use the embedded link for the CyberSmart! Classroom Materials: Password Security Activity and Posters, it will immediately download the entire lesson and the posters FREE from the government-sponsored website. They have a lot of other really wonderful digital citizenship lessons, too!

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