School Computer Privacy (S 549)

This legislation would have implemented comprehensive privacy requirements for school-loaned computers.

In recent years, distributing computers to students in our public schools for home use has become commonplace. Unfortunately, as a study we conducted from two years ago showed, students have virtually no privacy protections on these computers, with some policies even allowing remote spying on students. This legislation would have implemented comprehensive privacy requirements for such computers which would only allow school officials to search devices if they have reasonable suspicion to believe the student has engaged in misconduct on the computer, and would have prohibited remote access except in limited circumstances. We testified in support of this bill, but it died in committee.