Tanaya Nasser-Frederick on vendor data loopholes and private equity concerns

Hi, my name's Tanaya Nasser-Frederick.

I'm with the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience, which conducts investigative and community-centered research to ensure the government use of technology advances the public good and democracy.

I'm also speaking as a member of the AI Moratorium Coalition.

The data privacy officer mentioned that schools have the right to share student data with school officials, but he neglected to mention that most vendors in New York City public schools are designated as school officials.

The Department of Education does list its FERPA-exempt vendors on its website.

This list includes the mandated curriculum HMH, which hosts Amira.

Amira has taken a major investment from the investor branch of Amazon's Alexa.

HMH is owned by the private equity firm Veritas Capital, which also currently owns the company Periton that is contracted to build DHS's biometric database.

Two companies consulted on the DHS.

OEs preliminary AI guidelines, Accenture and Salesforce also maintain quiet contracts with Customs and Border Patrol.

So the data privacy officer needs to better explain why data privacy agreements are not available to the public, because it's a great cause of alarm for parents, teachers, and students who are concerned that student data is being used for third-party product development,

and even contributing to higher resolution databases used by the Department of Homeland Security.

The public also doesn't have a way of verifying whether a vendor has undergone an IRMA approval process.

We don't know whether HMH's AI add-ons are writable in a mirror.

IRMA approved or if they are considered approved based on HMH's pre-existing approval.

And take a company like iReady that's facing multiple class action lawsuits around the country for wrongly sharing student data.

Even were there an overwhelming community mobilization against a vendor such as iReady, most districts are too dependent on the product to cancel their contract with the vendor.

The real concern around AI is private equity and venture capital-backed consolidations around private solutions for public education beyond siphoning public spending for the profit of these companies and their vendors.

A district's dependence on a vendor is a threat to democracy and to the kind of community engagement that the DOE claims to value.

Thank you.

Once the district establishes a relationship of dependency with a vendor, the vendor is operating with impunity.

Thank you so much.