Published in Chronicle of Higher Education (12/17/2012)

Collect the Data You Need, Not All the Data You Can

In Colleges' Concerted Campaign for Ignorance (The Chronicle, December 17), Kevin Carey continues his own concerted campaign of misrepresenting the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities' reasons for opposing the development of a federal registry of college students. Impossible as it for Mr. Carey to fathom, the driving force behind our opposition to a federal student unit-record data system has always--and continues to be--the belief that the price for enrolling in college should not be permanent entry into a massive data registry. Such a registry would collect individual data about students throughout their lifetimes, with no serious discussion about what data should not be collected or what privacy safeguards would remain. One could argue that Mr. Carey and other proponents would prefer no safeguards, having free rein to collect what they want, when they want, without having to seek permission from Congress, students, parents, or anyone else.

We have good reason to be concerned that such a registry would prove irresistible to future demands for use and additions to the data for noneducational purposes. A 2009 study by the Center on Law and Policy Information at Fordham Law School on the state of privacy protection in states’ K-12 student databases (which, across the nation, are being linked to higher-education databases) provides some sobering revelations. According to the report's executive summary:

Most states collected information in excess of what is needed for the reporting requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and what appeared needed to evaluate overall school progress. The majority of longitudinal databases that we examined held detailed information about each child in what appeared to be non-anonymous student records. Typically, the information collected included directory, demographic, disciplinary, academic, health, and family information.

Some striking examples are that at least 32 percent of the states warehouse children’s Social Security numbers, at least 22 percent of the states record children’s pregnancies, at least 46 percent of the states track mental health, illness, and jail sentences as part of the children's educational records, and almost all states with known programs collect family wealth indicators.

We found that, given the detailed and sensitive nature of the information collected, the databases generally had weak privacy protections. Often the flow of information from the local educational agency to the state department of education was not in compliance with the privacy requirements of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.