Federal Court Drops Kids Privacy Case Against EdTech Platform Instructure
A federal court sided with education technology platform Instructure and ruled that a case against it failed to plausibly allege specific facts about the taking or use of data. The U.S. District Court for Central California dismissed case 25-02711.
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The plaintiffs -- parents on behalf of their minor children -- alleged that Instructure monetized users' personal information without consent. Users were mostly school-aged children.
The parents' complaint "is an ambitious pleading that fails to satisfy the basic requirements" needed to state a claim, said Judge Stanley Blumenfeld. "The 82-page pleading largely consists of broad, generalized allegations about Defendant’s full product line, while offering scant detail about Plaintiffs’ own experiences with any of them," and "the section titled 'Plaintiff-Specific Allegations' spans only a few pages and contains mostly conclusory assertions."
Despite allegations that Instructure "provided third parties personally identifying data belonging to Plaintiffs for commercial purposes, including identification, targeting, influencing, and decision-making purposes," the complaint doesn't "identify what information -- or even what categories of information -- was collected from any plaintiff or to whom it was allegedly disclosed," the judge added.
Filed in March, the lawsuit claimed Instructure's actions violated the Fourth Amendment, 14th Amendment, the California Invasion of Privacy Act and California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act and Unfair Competition Law, among other laws (see 2503280041).
Instructure argued it had federal and state authorization for its actions, and that the parents failed to allege constitutional violations or invasion of privacy (see 2506030021 and 2506250033).