Caines, A., & Glass, E. (2019, Fall). Education before Regulation: Empowering Students to Question Their Data Privacy. EDUCAUSE Review, 54(4). Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2019/10/education-before-regulation-empowering-students-to-question-their-data-privacy
What?
This article presents that privacy concerns in education fields are being increased since data is an essential factor for learning and teaching process in these days as well as personal data is numerously collected for commercial or economic reason. The authors point out that institutions or educators should have an effort to protect students data privacy and empower students to be aware of their data privacy when they engage in online learning activities.
So What?
I totally agree with the author’s idea “data privacy comes with a special set of concerns and issues for students. First of all, if students want to participate in standard educational activities, they often have little opportunity for real choice or consent around what data is collected. Additionally, once the data is collected, students have little visibility into how that data will be leveraged, monetized, or exposed later on. Given ongoing developments in data science application and analysis, data that seems innocuous or even anonymous today may well put students at risk in the future”. Students are unaware of their data values and how can it be used in the future. I also can’t expect how my data will be used. While I was reading this article, one movie came to my mind. The title of the movie is Snowden and I watched this movie a few years ago. Before watching this move, I never thought about my data privacy and I didn’t care about it. Many people react like “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” I am wondering how can I answer this question for my children. How can I teach my children to have a digital literacy as well as data privacy.
Now What?
Educational programs about the digital literacy or data privacy need to be developed for teachers and children or parents. We need to start to be aware of the challenges of collecting information in the internet and have related knowledge and the law. Even though we are ware of this concern, we don’t have a power to refuse it. Anyway, educators should think about protecting students from their data privacy in case of engaging in online learning.