Krishnan raises data privacy concerns with ed tech vendors like Amira
Krishnan questions how student data is shared with vendors and third parties, citing Amira as an example that records student voices, and asks about parental consent and disclosure requirements.
Great.
I'm encouraged, very encouraged to hear that, and I look forward to continuing to work together to monitor that issue as well, and I'm sure we'll hear about it from kids and parents if there are any gaps in the coverage there, but I'm very glad to hear it.
The other thing I would just encourage you all to is, as we think about laptops at home, without the guardrails in place, before it was YouTube, now it's going to be other programs.
There is real need to think about the importance of having those guardrails in place, too, around laptop and at-home laptop policy as well.
We appreciate that, especially since they are city-issued devices.
We've kind of made them come into the home.
We need to help our parents and our students manage them effectively.
Exactly.
And then my final question is on a separate topic altogether, but very, very related.
Right now, there are a lot of programs, whether it's some of the gamified apps that we can talk more about that kind of still register.
those same dopamine hits as we see in social media later, that are a concern, there's a real question of how data is being used by the vendors
of these programs, the third parties that they contract with, and how far children's data travels
with all of these different programs, right?
For example, there's Amira, which you all know is a reading tool online.
Now, I strongly believe that, you know, reading with a good old-fashioned book, as we talked about, is important.
But Amira records student voices.
Now, I know you all are keeping, you know, recording it but saying it's stored locally, but...
You know, or turning off the AI component.
But what I've heard is that AI is such a central part of Amira, there's no way to turn off the AI component and keep Amira functioning as is.
So with programs like these, one, are parents aware of
how far their data is traveling.
In other words, is there any disclosure?
I'm not aware of them, but is there any disclosure or any consent required, or is it sort of a blanket consent when you go to school?
Their data is being captured, it's being shared.
And two, with programs like Amir and things like that that store this information,
Doesn't that heighten the need for parents to be aware that their children's voices are being recorded or data is being captured?