Mason Fitch
Blog Post
Professor Ira Rubinstein
March 21, 2017
The California legislature is considering a bill that would remove California’s leading privacy protections—passed in a bill dubbed “CalECPA”—from school halls. A.B. 165, introduced by Assemblymember Jim Cooper, is short: all it says is that CalECPA does not apply to local educational agencies or individuals acting on their behalf.
CalECPA, heralded as the nation’s best digital privacy law, prohibits a government entity from compelling the production of or access to electronic communication information without a warrant. The protections apply to both data and metadata. Largely, CalECPA extends the privacy protections afforded to physical belongings to the digital arena.
As the EFF and other privacy watchdogs have pointed out, passage of A.B. 165 would have dangerous implications for California’s students and parents. As described more fully in the linked article below, removing CalECPA protections from schools would mean that any teacher, administrator, or staff member could conduct an almost unlimited search of a student’s digital presence. It hardly needs to be pointed out at this point, but our digital devices contain an extraordinary amount of extremely sensitive information. Gone are the days where the most embarrassing thing a teacher could do is read aloud what you passed in a crumpled note to your friend across the aisle; the passage of A.B. 165 would give school employees access to anything from your geolocation history to your health information, not to mention personal messages and pictures.
The disappearing communications platform Snapchat, already immensely popular among students, may become even more popular (and necessary) should A.B. 165 gain passage in the California legislature.
Even more troubling is the bill’s application to individuals acting on behalf of the educational organization. A.B. 165 would allow on-campus police officers to search students’ digital devices, and there are no limitations on how that information is shared. An undocumented student’s status may be revealed through such a search, and there’s nothing to stop the person conducting the search from sharing that information with federal officials.
Schools often reside in a special zone when it comes to student privacy as there are special concerns about student safety and development. Every individual, however, maintains an interest in some modicum of privacy; giving schools officials unrestricted access to students’ digital lives—often inseparable from their physical lives—may be a step too far.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/dangerous-california-bill-would-leave-students-and-teachers-vulnerable-warrantless