The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission, claiming that Google collects the personal data of students despite pledging not to.
Google signed the Student Privacy Pledge in January of this year. The pledge – which is legally enforceable – has been signed by 206 organisations to date. The signatories promise not to, among other things, sell student information, behaviour target advertising or use and collect student information for purposes other than educational purposes. The EFF claim that Chromebook’s used in schools as part of the Chromebook and Google Apps for Education (GAFE) program, come with the “Sync” feature enabled by default. The “Sync” feature allows Google to track and store information about websites students visit, what they search for on Google, and any passwords they input on the Chrome browser. While Google do not pass this information on to advertisers, and do not serve adverts on any of the services or applications (such as Gmail) given to schools, the EFF argue that Google uses this information for its own gain – which is against the pledge they signed.
“Despite publicly promising not to, Google mines students’ browsing data and other information, and uses it for the company’s own purposes. Making such promises and failing to live up to them is a violation of FTC rules against unfair and deceptive business practices,” said EFF Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo.
Responding to the complaint, Google has told the EFF that it will “soon” disable settings on the Chromebooks used in schools that allow browsing history to be shared with Google services, however the EFF claim this is not enough.
EFF Staff Attorney Sophia Cope said: “We are calling on the FTC to investigate Google’s conduct, stop the company from using student personal information for its own purposes, and order the company to destroy all information it has collected that’s not for educational purposes.”