Local Lawmakers Seek to Enhance Privacy Protections for Students

By City News Service:

A Riverside County lawmaker said this week she is co- sponsoring legislation seeking to prevent school districts from arbitrarily collecting personal information about students.

Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, joined Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, and Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, in introducing AB 2097, which would stop school districts from gathering students’ Social Security numbers, mental health and medical information without parental consent.

“Our school districts are collecting personal information about our children that is neither legally required nor necessary for their education,” Melendez said. “With identity theft at an all-time high, our focus should be on protecting our students, not exposing their personal information unnecessarily.”

The lawmakers said AB 2097 is in direct response to a federal court case, Morgan Hill Concerned Parents Association v. California Department of Education, which culminated in a judge ruling that personal identifying information could be collected by districts.

The civil rights lawsuit, filed in 2013, alleged that more than 60 special needs children did not have equal access to public education.

The defendants were ordered to turn over students’ Social Security and health data going back to 2008 to partially resolve the case.

“As a mom, I’ve seen my kids’ schools over the years request Social Security numbers, medical information and other private information that they don’t need or have a right to,” Gonzalez said. “Rather than expecting parents to have the knowledge and capacity to fight to protect their child’s privacy, we should get schools out of the business of asking in the first place.”

Gatto said the risks of people’s personal information being compromised in “frequent data breaches” make it all the more important to treat youths’ records with special care.

The three legislators say school districts statewide should now proactively provide state-issued objection forms to parents so they can register their opposition to any collection of personal or private data.

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