A nuanced look at Student Data Privacy

Student data privacy is a big concern with the proliferation of data in education. But is all data equally concerning? We tend to put all “Student Data” in one big bucket and treat it as if it’s all the same. Yet we know there are drastic differences between different schools and EdTech companies in their mission, approach, pedagogy and tools: is it really reasonable to suspect that all of their data is the same? And more importantly is all data and uses of that data equally threatening from a student privacy standpoint?

I’ll give away the punchline- my answer is no, not all student data is equal. But if it’s not all equal, what criteria can we use to distinguish student data?  Here’s some ideas.