LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
FIRST SIGNS OF COMING PRIVACY BATTLE CLEAR
Rep. Miller Introduces Student Privacy Bill,
Sen. Dodd Raises Issue
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The opening weeks of the new Congress confirmed what has long been expected – privacy will be a major issue this year, and Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Congressman George Miller (D-CA) will resume their push for some type of a student-privacy measure. President Bush is also putting education on a fast track, which could move up the timetable for action.
Sponsors of broad online privacy bills have vowed to reintroduce legislation soon, smaller bills have already been introduced in the House, and the Bush Administration has given its first indications that it is sympathetic to some regulation of online information.
Dodd/Miller Student Privacy Bill
Rep. Miller (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, last week introduced a comprehensive education bill (HR 340), which contains the same student-privacy language approved by the House panel last year. The bill exempts recruitment activities of colleges, but not the organizations that provide names to do so. And the bill restricts the use of information for a specific product, preventing publishers from using it for other educational publications.
The panel’s new chairman, Rep. Boehner (R-OH), who has been supportive of Kids in the Know in the past, has not said when they will consider the education bill.
Sen. Dodd used the confirmation hearings for Education Secretary Roderick Paige, and an earlier meeting he had with the former the bill
he and Sen. Shelby introduced last year that Houston school superintendent to promote would require parental consent before information collected in schools could be shared with outside groups.
At the hearing, Dodd expressed his concern about, "groups going [into schools] and conducting surveys of students. This is the issue of growing commercialism, utilizing student populations as testing groups for various products. . . . without, in some cases even the awareness of the superintendent of schools," nor "any kind of parental notification."
First Sign of a Bush Privacy Stance
Throughout the campaign, President Bush was silent on the issue of online privacy and the regulation of information. But, according to National Journal’s Technology Daily, a list of Bush technology proposals released last month contained a provision on privacy.
Under the rubric "notice and consent," it said, "Everyone should have the ability to know what information is collected about them and how it will be used, and to accept or decline the collection or dissemination of this information."
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