Shorenstein Center Pozen Fellow Dipayan Ghosh, an expert in data privacy and digital platforms, and Jim Steyer, founder and chief executive of Common Sense Media, which advocates for improving media and entertainment for families, authored an op-ed published today in the New York Times. They argue that technology companies have been given nearly free rein over gathering data from children in classrooms where they provide educational resources and devices. While the access that these tools provide is often educationally valuable, Ghosh and Steyer argue that the tradeoff of a lifelong invasion to children’s data privacy should not be tolerated.
Wherever the rules are muddy for the industry, we should make them resoundingly clear in such a way that protects our children and, implicitly, our national interest. If we have learned anything about Silicon Valley this year, it is that we cannot sit back and wait for the industry to voluntarily act on behalf of children; our government must intervene before more harm comes to them.
Read the op-ed at The New York Times.
