Understanding FERPA, CIPA and Other K–12 Student Data Privacy Laws

Every 11 seconds, bad actors use ransomware to attack the data-rich education sector, targeting school districts nationwide. Earlier this year, schools in New Mexico closed for two days when a hack compromised data on emergency contacts and the names of adults authorized to pick up students from school.
With the increased risk to school data and operations, how can districts protect themselves?
One solution is to invest in Backup as a Service, a managed cybersecurity and data center solution. BaaS can help districts ensure they have up-to-date and prepared backups in place in the event of a…

Josh Taylor / The Guardian:
Australian telco Optus, which has suffered a massive cyberattack, has repeatedly opposed changes to privacy laws to give customers more rights over their data  —  In its submission to Privacy Act review telco said giving people right to erase personal data would involve ‘significant’ hurdles and costs

Bad actors are constantly evolving their attack vectors, looking for new ways to enter systems undetected. Now, hackers are exploiting cloud storage services to infiltrate networks and hide their attacks. Through phishing emails, they’re targeting cloud applications such as Google Drive and Dropbox. Once inside the system, these malicious parties can access sensitive data stored in their targets’ systems.
Many K–12 districts rely on cloud applications such as Google Workspace to facilitate learning. As a result, school IT teams must remain vigilant about updating security solutions and…

Emma Camp / Reason:
Critics say the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a digital privacy law for minors, could lead to invasive age verification methods like face-scanning  —  While the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act was hailed as a victory for digital privacy, critics warn of a litany of unintended consequences.

Joe Schneider / Bloomberg:
A US federal appeals court upholds the Texas social media content moderation law, lifting an injunction that blocked it and remanding it back to the lower court  —  A federal appeals court upheld the validity of a Texas social-media law that companies like Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc …