Why the Current Google for Education is not a Good Idea for kids
Despite its ease of use and cheapness, schools should not allow access to kids’ private data by a corporation that does not follow the law
Voices have been rising since at least 2014 about the privacy concerns arising from the overwhelming adoption of Google for Education in US and Canadian schools. The New York Times explains how Google went about convincing universities, then schools, to abandon their clunky or absent work suites for its own.
Lawsuits galore against Google for privacy infringement in the US and Europe :
There are tens, maybe hundreds of pending lawsuits and complaints against Google’ s privacy and data collection practices in 2021 if those outside the US are added. Here are articles about a small sampling of them:
2014: Google under Fire for Data Mining Student Emails ( EdWeek)
2015: The EFF is suiing Google for non transparents student data collection
2017: Mississipi AG against Google for Education: K-12 data was used to build advertising profiles
2017: It is impossible to understand how Google Actually Uses Student Information
2017: Class Action Lawsuit in Canada on Privacy practices
2018: European Lawsuits under the GDPR against Google’s “consent blackmail”
2019: 50 US attorney generals announce investigation into Google’s Business Practices
2019: We street-proof our kids, why aren’t we data-proofing them?
2020: New Mexico Attorney General sues Google for Data collected through its Chrome Book computers
