FPF Service Description

Educators often need something to use in their classroom yesterday. As a recent example, in April, 2020, teachers were forced to teach online due to the current COVID-19 pandemic. As a consequence to propelling classrooms online, teachers in their haste often neglected student privacy when adopting new EdTech products (Schaffhauser, 2020). Education needs a liaison to facilitate the protection of student data being collected by the EdTech companies that offer their services and products as learning devices. Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) is a nonprofit organization that focuses on bringing the stakeholders (government, developers and consumers) together to agree on a privacy plan to serve all parties.

FPF deals with data privacy issues that involve many technology sectors: AI and machine learning, algorithms, biometrics, connected cars and mobility, de-identification, ethics, government and law enforcement, health, internet of things, location and ad practices, mobile location analytics, smart communities and youth privacy. Although not exhaustive of FPF’s reach into the technology privacy sector, several of the aforementioned areas of privacy concern should interest an EdTech company when planning to deliver its products. Regardless, the most pertinent of these issues to an EdTech company would be FPF’s work in K-12 education. Data is flowing in, within and out of schools through a lot of different EdTech products; this information often helps teachers understand how students are learning, and for students to learn how they learn (Vance & Waughn, 2020). However, data privacy is of utmost concern when dealing with student information. In this regard FPF acts as a privacy watchdog as technology and education continue to blend, and will only become more enmeshed as we move forward through the information age.