AppleInsider Staff
A number of tech industry heavyweights, including Apple, Microsoft and Google, have pledged support for a data privacy initiative aimed at keeping student information safe.
After passing on the opportunity to sign on to a student privacy pledge endorsed by President Barack Obama last week, Google on Tuesday changed course and is now part of a list of 91 companies supporting the initiative, reports The Wall Street Journal. Apple, Microsoft and 73 other big education technology firms signed on last week.
The Student Privacy Pledge was introduced last October as a joint project from the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA). It holds signatories accountable for a variety of privacy issues facing today's students, including provisions for greater transparency on data collection and use, implementation of comprehensive security standards, set limits on data retention and promises to not sell student information.
Prior to today's announcement, Google maintained that its internal policies were enough to demonstrate a commitment to student data privacy. The report notes, however, that the Internet search giant is likely hesitant to agree to broad industry pledges after being fined $22.5 million by the Federal Trade Commission in 2012 over cookie-based Web tracking. Coincidentally, that particular issue was related to an exploit discovered in Apple's Safari browser.
"We've signed the pledge to reaffirm the commitments we've made directly to our customers," a Google spokeswoman said.
For its part, Google has promised that its Google Apps for Education program, which has some 40 million student, teacher and administrator users, does not and will not implement ads.
As of this writing, the Student Privacy Pledge has 91 signatories covering a broad swath of the tech sector. Among the 15 companies that signed up on Tuesday was YouTube-based Khan Academy, which recently released its entire course lineup to iPad users via an app update.
William Gallagher
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
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Andrew O'Hara
18 Comments
So how exactly do they hold signatories accountable? Did Google just decide they could sign on because it doesn't mean anything or will there actually be repercussions for a company that doesn't abide by their pledge? I've read through the pledge website and apart from detailing who has pledged, what they are pledging and some contact details there isn't anything in there about how individual companies will be held accountable.
LOL
[quote name="GTR" url="/t/184401/google-joins-apple-microsoft-others-in-student-data-privacy-pledge#post_2663999"]LOL[/quote] I echo your sentiment. Also, with government agencies and politicians continually undermining and demanding backdoor access to our data and the various spy agencies hacking into and weakening privacy everywhere, these pledges ARE laughable.
[quote name="Lolliver" url="/t/184401/google-joins-apple-microsoft-others-in-student-data-privacy-pledge#post_2663995"]So how exactly do they hold signatories accountable? Did Google just decide they could sign on because it doesn't mean anything or will there actually be repercussions for a company that doesn't abide by their pledge? I've read through the pledge website and apart from detailing who has pledged, what they are pledging and some contact details there isn't anything in there about how individual companies will be held accountable.[/quote] I don't think there is any accountability connected to the pledge, at least from what I've read thru. Of course making a public commitment and then reneging on it would probably attract a pretty severe backlash from the press and public, if not from some government agency as well. FWIW Apple declined to pledge (or simply ignored it as unimportant perhaps) when the initiative was first announced back in October, although Microsoft was in on it from the beginning. It looks like Apple joined up only quite recently as well, perhaps just last week? http://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/whos-missing-from-new-student-privacy-pledge-google-apple-pe#.klY22dADWn
Google is involved in Common Core, so is Microsoft. This pledge is meaningless. .