Tom Nash or the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism reports:
… As the pandemic forces Virginia’s 1.2 million public school students to trade classrooms for laptops and smartphones — if they have them — many educators, parents and privacy advocates are raising alarms across the state about children’s digital security.
Lapses in online protections have led to issues ranging from students’ internet usage information being mined for profit to the theft of sensitive data, creating long-ranging consequences for children’s personal privacy. Weak controls also have allowed online bullying to flourish in hard-to-monitor chats and private messages.
A review of dozens of school policies by the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism revealed incomplete or inconsistent rules for guarding student data, despite a 2015 state law enhancing protections. Many district policies appeared to be based on 50-year-old state guidelines originally intended to protect information about student health and report cards.
Read more on Virginia Mercury.