Student Data Privacy Bills Filed in Montana and New York
Lawmakers in Montana and New York are seeking to enhance student privacy through bills filed this week. The New York measure would also set rules for employers.
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Montana Sen. Daniel Zolnikov (R) introduced a bill (SB-118) Thursday that would give K-12 students a “right to be forgotten,” meaning that students or parents could ask superintendents of public schools to delete education data. The bill aims to enhance student data privacy in various other ways.
The New York legislation would set rules for accessing students’ and employees’ protected personal online accounts. Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon (D) sponsored A-1320 with one Republican and six Democratic co-sponsors. The Assembly Labor Committee will consider it first.
A-1320 would prohibit schools from asking students to disclose their login information for, or content of, protected personal online accounts, among other things. An employer accessing employee information from a personal account for an allowed purpose, such as to comply with a law or to protect against a safety threat, would be required to “attempt reasonably to limit its access to content that is relevant to the specified purpose,” the bill says: An employer may not use employee login information, kept for security, maintenance or other reasons, to access the employee’s account and “shall make a reasonable effort to keep the login information secure.”