Briana Calleros
Policy Associate
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Common Sense Kids Action supports extending protections offered by SOPIPA to preschools and pre-K.
Your Preschooler Is a Tech Whiz, but Is Her Data Safe?
Common Sense Kids Action supports extending protections offered by SOPIPA to preschools and pre-K.
Topics:
Early Childhood
Learning
Big Data
California
Online Privacy and Safety
Pre-K
Research and Studies
SOPIPA
Are you ever surprised when toddlers have a better mastery of technology than adults? Our rapidly changing world has made it so technology and media use begins at an increasingly younger age. In fact, according to Common Sense Media's study, Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America, half of all children age 0 to 8 had used mobile apps in 2013, up from 16 percent in 2011. The report says that the most frequently used apps for this age group were educational games (43 percent).
It should come as no surprise that the benefits of education technology are being harnessed by preschools and pre-kindergartens. Early education settings increasingly integrate tablets in the classroom and use cloud-computing services to enrich student education and improve academic operations. But what about the risks?
In 2014, California became a national leader on student privacy protections with the unanimous passage of SB 1177, known as the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA). SOPIPA went into effect on January 1, 2016, and ensures the privacy and security of personal information and educational records for children from kindergarten through high school.
While SOPIPA protects K–12 student privacy, there is still work to do to protect California's younger kids in their educational environments. That's why Common Sense Kids Action has sponsored Assembly Bill (AB) 2799, the Early Learning Privacy Information Protection Act (ELPIPA), authored by Assemblymember Ed Chau. This bill has also received the Common Sense Legislative Ratings "For Kids" designation.
ELPIPA extends the protections offered by SOPIPA to preschools and pre-kindergartens. ELPIPA imposes requirements directly on websites, online services, and mobile apps that are designed, marketed, and used primarily for preschool and pre-kindergarten purposes. The bill:
- Prohibits using children's personal information for targeted advertising
- Prohibits using children's personal information for profiling (except for school purposes)
- Prohibits selling children's personal information
- Prohibits disclosing children's personal information (with limited exceptions to permit site functionality or as required by law)
- Requires reasonable data security for children's information
- Requires companies to delete children's information upon the school's request
Preschools and pre-kindergartens should be safe havens for learning and benefit from the same privacy protections for children as California's K–12 schools.
Are you ever surprised when toddlers have a better mastery of technology than adults? Our rapidly changing world has made it so technology and media use begins at an increasingly younger age. In fact, according to Common Sense Media's study, Zero to Eight: Children's Media Use in America, half of all children age 0 to 8 had used mobile apps in 2013, up from 16 percent in 2011. The report says that the most frequently used apps for this age group were educational games (43 percent).
It should come as no surprise that the benefits of education technology are being harnessed by preschools and pre-kindergartens. Early education settings increasingly integrate tablets in the classroom and use cloud-computing services to enrich student education and improve academic operations. But what about the risks?
In 2014, California became a national leader on student privacy protections with the unanimous passage of SB 1177, known as the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA). SOPIPA went into effect on January 1, 2016, and ensures the privacy and security of personal information and educational records for children from kindergarten through high school.
While SOPIPA protects K–12 student privacy, there is still work to do to protect California's younger kids in their educational environments. That's why Common Sense Kids Action has sponsored Assembly Bill (AB) 2799, the Early Learning Privacy Information Protection Act (ELPIPA), authored by Assemblymember Ed Chau. This bill has also received the Common Sense Legislative Ratings "For Kids" designation.
ELPIPA extends the protections offered by SOPIPA to preschools and pre-kindergartens. ELPIPA imposes requirements directly on websites, online services, and mobile apps that are designed, marketed, and used primarily for preschool and pre-kindergarten purposes. The bill:
- Prohibits using children's personal information for targeted advertising
- Prohibits using children's personal information for profiling (except for school purposes)
- Prohibits selling children's personal information
- Prohibits disclosing children's personal information (with limited exceptions to permit site functionality or as required by law)
- Requires reasonable data security for children's information
- Requires companies to delete children's information upon the school's request
Preschools and pre-kindergartens should be safe havens for learning and benefit from the same privacy protections for children as California's K–12 schools.
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