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Q&A

Hanif questions Amira's collection of student biometric voice data

New York City Council · Jun 24, 2026 · starts 2:26:35 · 2 min 51 sec

Hanif raises concerns that Amira, a reading support tool, collects biometric voice data from students. Tara Carozza explains Amira uses student voice interactively for reading fluency practice, and under the data processing agreement, all data must be deleted after one year, hosted in the U.S., and not used to train other models.

Shahana K. Hanif

Thank you, Chair.

Shahana K. Hanif

I had asked about whether public schools were collecting biometric data.

Shahana K. Hanif

And while the schools may not be retaining that information, it's my understanding that Amira

Shahana K. Hanif

which is being used for reading support, is collecting biometric data.

Shahana K. Hanif

And is that something you all know about?

Shahana K. Hanif

What was the conversation with Amira around the storage of data specifically?

Member of the Public

Thank you for your question.

Member of the Public

I'm going to turn it over to Tara, but I really appreciate you giving us also the opportunity to share how that is used.

Shahana K. Hanif

Absolutely.

Shahana K. Hanif

Thank you.

Shahana K. Hanif

I mean, I think that, you know, reading is one place where this technology is, I think, going to be a lifeline.

Shahana K. Hanif

But in the same vein, if student voices are being collected and we're not sure where that

Shahana K. Hanif

might be going to, who it is being used by aside from Amira, that is a problem.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

Thank you for your question, Tara Carosa.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

So Amira is using student voice in an interactive way with their AI agent in order to provide reading fluency practice, feedback targeted towards that

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

that individual students needs.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

In terms of our data processing agreement with Amira and with all of our vendors, there's a one year data

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

And I'm going to pass it over to Dennis, but I'll share, you know, as I understand it.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

After one year, all data has to be deleted.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

It has to be hosted within the U.S.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

And there is no use of student PII or biometric data that goes out to any other large language model used to train any other models used to be monetized.

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

So using any form of student data is not allowed to go out based on our data processing agreement.

Shahana K. Hanif

And that agreement, can that be shared?

Member of the Public - Tara Carozza

I'm going to pass it to Dennis as the chief data privacy officer.

Member of the Public - Dennis

Yeah, we generally don't share our data processing agreements publicly.

Member of the Public - Dennis

Why is that?

Member of the Public - Dennis

It's just like any other internal DEWE document.

Member of the Public - Dennis

We don't share it publicly.

Shahana K. Hanif

I mean, it's really hard to then trust.

Member of the Public - Dennis

There is a portion of the agreement that is posted publicly.

Member of the Public - Dennis

It's the supplemental questionnaire.

Shahana K. Hanif

Does it include this piece about the deletion after one year and commitment?

Member of the Public - Dennis

Yes, it does speak to how the vendor will...

Shahana K. Hanif

I would love to just be pointed to where that is.