Students who use Google Chromebooks listen up. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) just filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission last Tuesday with allegations that Google is mining the user information of students who use their Chromebooks.
If the allegation proves to be true, it would be a gross violation of the Student Privacy Pledge that Google signed last January, BGR reported. Around 200 companies including Apple and Microsoft currently abide by the pledge.
The pledge is a voluntary agreement that says companies will not sell student information and will not use the data for anything but “authorized education purposes.” The complaint says that Google enables Chrome Sync by default and student internet activity is tracked automatically.
The EFF complaint explained, “This allows Google to track, store on its servers, and data mine for non-advertising purposes, records of every Internet site students visit, every search term they use, the results they click on, videos they look for and watch on YouTube, and their saved passwords,”
Furthermore, administrators also have the option to let third-party websites access location data. This is “unquestionably sharing personal information beyond what is needed for educational purposes.”
The Verge noted that Google denied that their Chromebooks are used for student information collection. A spokesperson said, “While we appreciate EFF's focus on student privacy, we are confident that these tools comply both with law and our promises, including the Student Privacy Pledge.”
Aside from Chrome Sync, students who log in to their Google Apps for Education accounts are still vulnerable to Google snooping. Since many schools require the use of Chromebooks during class, parents may not even know that their children are being tracked.
EFF attorney Nate Cardozo said, “Minors shouldn’t be tracked or used as guinea pigs, with their data treated as a profit center. If Google wants to use students’ data to ‘improve Google products,’ then it needs to get express consent from parents.”
