In this episode of Digital Dominoes, host Angeline Corvaglia speaks with Heidi Saas, a privacy and technology lawyer, about the crucial need for protecting children's digital privacy within school environments. They explore why Heidi's turned her focus to becoming an advocate for data privacy in Edtech, discuss the hidden intricacies of Edtech tools, and highlight the importance of the involvement and education of both parents and kids to bring about positive change. The conversation underscores the challenges posed by unregulated data collection in schools, the lack of transparency from tech companies, and potential legal avenues for safeguarding children’s data. They also emphasize the collective efforts needed from parents, schools, and regulators to bring about positive change.

00:00 Introduction to the Edtech Privacy Parents Series

00:34 Meet Heidi Saas: Privacy Advocate and Parent

01:24 The Privacy Concerns in EdTech

02:10 The Hidden Data Flows and Opt-Out Struggles

04:22 Legal Loopholes and Data Monetization

05:26 The Fight for Transparency and Accountability

06:52 Collaborative Efforts for Change

11:35 Engaging Schools and Parents

17:50 Empowering the Next Generation

21:03 Conclusion and Call to Action

We can also recommend these articles that explain the issue of content and data sharing.

• Aimed at teens: What You Should Know About School Technology and Data Sharing - Data Girl and Friends
• Aimed at parents: Tech at School: Protecting Your Child's Privacy - ANGELINE CORVAGLIA

Info on how to request information from schools

• USA: What is a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and how do you make one https://www.foia.gov/how-to.html

In addition, we also recommend these resources:

• Me2B Alliance Product Testing Report on School Mobile Apps Student Data Sharing Behavior: https://internetsafetylabs.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/school-apps-data-sharing-behavior-spotlight-report-final.pdf
• Edtech Law Center's resources on issues with edtech: https://edtech.law/issues-with-edtech/

Hello and welcome to another episode. Today I'm really excited because we're talking to Heidi Saas, who's a privacy and technology lawyer but also a parent who has gotten quite passionate about Edtech and privacy and she actually got me involved in it because we're working on a information campaign for parents to help them understand what's really going on and ask the right questions and it will culminate in a conference in [00:01:00] February.

The SHIELD Global Online Safety Conference will help people from all over the world because this is a worldwide problem which we're showing with these interviews. So Heidi, thank you so much for being here to tell your story. Can you tell us what triggered your edtech privacy passion?

So once I got to that decision, I, I dealt with the school to say I have concerns and some of the paperwork that came home with the device was also concerning. So I'm, I'm looking through the device. Number one, I can't get to any of the administrative settings. So I can't download a [00:02:00] privacy preserving browser.

Well, that really bothered me because it means you already gave my data and my child's data to this app. I was opted into this by default.

Into a mental health app by the school? What's the logic in that?

So, I am already suspect. But when I started looking into it, I thought, I've got to be able to say no to this. Somehow, how dare you opt me into this, and my child. So, I started talking to the school about it, I started talking to other lawyers about it, and pushing back. Because the companies that buy these tools, they say they make this much on subscriptions, but they have this many millions in revenue every year. And people just don't understand that the delta between the two, [00:03:30] that money is coming from sale of our children's data.

And they built these tools in such a way, you can look back through the marketing materials for these tools, where they're telling each other in the field, build these tools in a way that the parents have to get involved. It's crucial to get parental involvement, which sounds like a nice thing, but their motivation for getting parental involvement was just to collect behavioral data.

All of this is such a fiction here in this country because they're saying that, you know, they're allowed to do this because of COPPA, which is an [00:04:30] old law. It is a law that regulates private companies. The word schools isn't even mentioned in the text of this law. There's no loophole for edtech apps in COPPA.

Schools aren't in there. So, the FERPA regulates schools. That's kind of the fiction that built this whole industry, and they haven't been called out on it because the Department of Education has not done any enforcement on the FERPA, so nobody knows about it, right? And they're thinking like, you know, this is just gravy.

And that's like a loophole big enough to drive a billion-dollar industry through, apparently. So that's We've got to go to the courts now to pull [00:05:30] that back and set where the lines are for data brokers when it comes to our children's data. So I didn't want to get involved in this. I got other things I need to work on in data privacy, but I have children, you know, and I am concerned.

So teachers are telling me they need me to bring in more tissues and, you know, hand sanitizer, because they don't have the money. Yet we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on snake oil technology that doesn't even work, and [00:06:30] as a kicker, we have all of our privacy rights being violated at the same time because they're monetizing our data. So, working with parents around the world saying we're all suffering the same fate here. It's the same common targets that are imposing their will upon us.

So let's coordinate and push back and use every avenue that we have for leverage.

It feels like all of this stuff with the data is very, very well hidden. Like, if you ask… “of course the data is secure!” And, you know, one of the fathers that I spoke to and I interviewed, he had one of those devices and he took it into the school and showed the superintendent of the school the data that was flowing out and they had no idea.

First, kill all the lawyers. Might solve some problems, [00:08:00] but yeah. Okay, so opacity is definitely a problem when it comes to technology. That is exactly how they've been able to get along doing what they're doing with the grift. Because no one knew about it. But as time has gone on, awareness has been their biggest risk factor.

It's beyond disrespectful. It's criminal. Stop with all of these things that you were doing because we never said it was okay. The opacity really continues to be a large problem with technology because independent audits are the only way to verify that these tools are actually working. Like you said, the parents are showing them the traffic, and the school administrators are like clutching their pearls.

Yes. You know, they're nested. So they have the, the terms and conditions, and then see this terms and conditions, and then see this cookie policy. So, I mean, you're six agreements deep into[00:09:30] these links rabbit hole to read the whole agreement to find out what in fact they are doing. When basically five of those links were telling you how they don't sell data but if you get down to the very bottom when you get to see who they're really sharing the data with it's everybody.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

So, we can make a lot of money if we do this over here until maybe someone tells us no and we can fight it, right? But there's a lot of money to be made between now and when the fight is over. So, why not continue to violate people's rights and make massive [00:10:30] profits at that? So, the VC market has come in and now some of these companies are no longer even publicly traded.

They're private held equity companies. That means they no longer have reporting and disclosure requirements to the SEC. And other trading boards so that we would have more information about what they're doing. The opacity is getting worse, so they're like, Let's make the company a black box around a whole suite of tools of black boxes and then nobody will ever get inside.

Like if you buy a used car, you're going to look at the tires, maybe look at the engine, whether you know what you're looking at or not. You're going to drive it around. If you're smart, you take it to a mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection before you buy this car. That's just for a couple hundred dollars on a used car.

Exactly. And one thing that I've noticed, and I've heard from a lot of different people, and I think it's actually impeding us making progress quite a bit, is that schools, for example, and other parents will actually get defensive if someone starts pointing these things out. They'll be like, I don't know, feel like they're being blamed for something, and the teachers won't want to talk about it, principals don't want to talk about it. There was one school where Google [00:12:00] was pitching in Spain to become the Silicon Valley, and I was like, well, if this poor principal of this school is being pitched directly by Google, what chance do they have?

So. I mean, what do you think is the best way to just, so people, you know, we're not trying to point fingers at people except for the ones that are taking the data, like, how can we move

past this? So, I did talk to the school people. I started by saying, listen, I, I don't want to throw shade at you for things you don't know.

But, I do this work and I will die on this hill. So I'm not going away, and here's what you need to know about this. Check me out if you want to, but there's a growing body of research that backs up everything I've told you so far. [00:13:00] So let's talk about how to move forward now that you are aware of what's going on, and let's move forward so that you can one, build an opt out for parents who do not want their children to participate in these digital ecosystems unless it's absolutely necessary.

[00:14:00] Well, it is now. So, I think one of the best things we can do is to bring forward these things of education between parents and students because the schools need to hear it from multiple sources, not just from, you know, lawyers and think tanks and things like that. They need to hear it from the faces of the people they see every day.

So if we start a FOIA request project and teach parents how to request through the FOIA process, Freedom of Information Act, how to request through that process, the contracts that the school administrators signed [00:15:00] behind these tools. If we could get a database of all of these contracts together, we could review them all and look and find out where they have issues or gaps. Because I'm thinking they're probably using the same agreement all over the place.

So I think if we can start getting everybody on board to bring forth more evidence, more network traffic from different tools that are used and captured, more exposés on the actual tools and what the tools are supposed to do versus what performance they have. The FTC [00:16:00] recently put down a case on AI because a company was claiming that they could do identification of weapons in children's school bags going into the school.

They sold it saying you wouldn't need as much help. They ended up needing more help in the human side which was more expensive just to help their tool which was snake oil. But the regulator stepped in and was like, careful what you claim about what your AI can do, and that company got in trouble. That is a case by case analysis going through the different tools.

I think that will have a big change on the digital ad tech ecosystem, which will definitely, and should definitely, inhibit their ability to operate this way in the school systems. Like I said before, it's a grey area, how long is it going to take before the changes are actually implemented, and we see those protections in place? It might be a while.[00:17:30]

But we're working on getting there, so I think all the efforts that we have ongoing with raising awareness, getting parents involved, giving them a voice so that they know how and where to push back. Educating our children to say here's what's happening behind what you see on the screen. So make better choices without clicking I accept if you really don't need to be in there or download another app, just say no.

And I was speaking to a young person just a few hours ago, and she told me, all of you older generations think that we don't care about our privacy, but we do care about our privacy more than you think. So you don't necessarily even have to say, I need to solve this for my kids.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

And like you said, it's hard to see what they're doing. Like, if somebody's stealing from your apple cart on the sidewalk, [00:19:00] you can see them stealing from you. Right? But if you are in the digital world, you're standing there, and you're looking the other way the entire time. You never know what's happening to your cart of apples.

Everybody's feeling it from you. So, we gotta get people to like, turn around and take off the blinders and see what's happened.

Exactly.

Right?

They're taking the apples and multiplying them.

Yeah. Yeah. Turning it into, you know, all kinds of money for them on the other side. Now, you know, and the schools are not in a position to be throwing money away.

So, it's, it's turned into an issue and I'm going to do… My rights aren't going to be violated [00:20:00] without some sort of remedy here, I, this has, this has to change, right, so I'm excited the progress is being made, and I'm grateful for all the help that I've gotten so far from all the people that have jumped in, the amount of evidence people are gathering is overwhelming.

Yes.

So, if we speak up, we will make space for those to find their ground and stand with us.

Yes. Perfect. Thank you. That's the perfect way to end. And thank you for explaining all of this in ways that we can all understand, because it's so important. Yeah. Awesome. So we're moving this forward with passion. I got researchers working on multiple projects in multiple continents right now.

We encourage all parents and loved ones to ensure that the digital footprints their children create at school are treated with the respect and care they deserve. If your school or area hasn't yet leaned heavily into technology at school, we hope these stories will help you ask the right questions when they do.

Digital Dominoes.