Google Signs Pledge to Keep Your Kids’ Data Safe

In this age of electronic surveillance and the ever-present question of online privacy, many parents are particularly concerned about their children’s online presence – who can see them, who might be collecting data on them, and how might they be using that data?

Large companies like Google have been the target of public criticism in the realm of data privacy. Citizens and writers have raised concerns about issues like tracking and the creation of ad profiles using information from personal communications.

Earlier this week, though, Google joined Apple, Microsoft, and more than 75 other major data-handling companies in signing the Student Privacy Pledge. The pledge, created by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Software & Information Industry Association – and touted in President Obama’s edtech agenda – lists several specific ways in which signees are to protect student data. It forbids the selling of student data and mandates transparency. And perhaps most importantly, it includes a provision for directly addressing the concerns of individual parents about their children’s data.

Education Week has more.