The Dutch Ministry of Education has decided to impose some restrictions on the use of the Chrome OS and Chrome web browser until August 2023 over concerns about data privacy.
The officials worry that Google services collect student data and make it available to large advertising networks, who use it for purposes beyond helping education.
Since the national watchdog doesn’t know where or how the students’ personal data is stored and processed, there are concerns about violating European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
It always irritates me to no end when people claim all the GDPR ever did was create cookie prompts (it didn’t – those prompts aren’t even GDPR compliant), when in fact, it’s been leading to things like this, where governments and advocacy groups now have the legal means to fight companies that violate the privacy rights of those of us in the EU. In this particular case, Google is being forced to change its privacy systems for the better.
It’s a sign of things to come now that the DMA has been fully passed.
Someone can explain to me why nowdays a lot of national Data Protection Authorities are waking up and start to concerning about Google ? And not versus Microsoft or Amazon ? Ok Google Suite is used in schools, but I am very happy to save the children from Microsoft world, and to have a cloud of services indipendent from the OS, linux or win or whatever.
And ok Google is not anymore viewed as a good giant, but it has the better cloud ecosystem.
t0nZ,
There is concern over all of them, but the focus changes depending on the events that articles are covering. I wouldn’t let microsoft off the hook for data mining on windows, but then my kids were not forced to use a microsoft account or device in the first place.
In education many school children are being forced onto google’s products and service ecosystem for school classwork, including my kids. The children did not get a say and neither do parents. Thanks to cookies and ubiquitous tracking bugs they may be tracking a lot more than public realizes. So in this particular case I think it’s justified to focus on google. I would extend the investigation’s scope beyond “chrome” though.
In this specific case, it’s pretty much because Google leads, by far and wide, the digital transformation in schools, and they are very unclear how they deal with students collected data (and they should not be collecting any data whatsoever in that case other than what is required for the product to function), and the government’s Prosecutors must pick their fights instead to fight all the world at once.
About MS, they are used to deal with governments. Usually, they have a specific product for governments, or recommend use of (more expensive and with the trojan horse… i mean… “telemetrics” restricted) versions like Windows Enterprise LTSC and force their IT to put up with long and boring guides to disable telemetrics ( like this one: https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Cyber-Security/Recommendations/SiSyPHuS_Win10/AP4/SiSyPHuS_AP4_node.html ). Their educational offerings, at least accordingly to them, complies with GDPR and FERPA, and they say that they only collect just enough for the product to function. ( https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/education-blog/education-insights-support-students-through-data-responsibly/ba-p/3503576 )
About Amazon, they have almost zero presence on educational markets, AFAIK.
Just to complement: Personally? I don’t believe that closed source, and even less these dreaded “cloud” solutions, has a place in a school. All the software that deals with basic education should be open and modifiable, all the data should be keep on premises, and physically isolated from the internet.
Even when these closed platforms offerings do complies with “data protection”, I see way too often it being used as a marketing ploy to push students towards a closed ecosystem belonging to the corporation keeping the platform instead to actually teach the fundamentals to them, specially with these new directives to push students toward “STEM”.
But not every school can afford a full staffed and well trained IT team, even less cash strapped public schools.
CapEnt,
That should be expanded to government in general. Public funds should yield public software. All government bids should automatically require public ownership of the product. We shouldn’t be allowing private corporations to exploit taxpayers via rent-seeking business models. Just think of how much software we’ve all been paying for that we can’t even audit or use. And we have to continue paying for the same software over and over again.
The fact that it’s the Dutch Ministry of Education taking a lead on this surprises me, given that the issue here appears to be unrelated to the students’ ages. In other words: if Chrome is leaking data to advertisers without user consent, then it doesn’t just contravene students’ GDPR rights, it contravenes every European citizens’ GDPR rights.
So you’d expect the Dutch Data Protection Authority to be making the case for all Dutch citizens. Aside from this, it’s good to see the Dutch Ministry of Education taking this seriously. It would have been very easy for them to turn a blind eye.
Why are schools eager to accept shiny but shady offerings from big corporations when actual, low level computer science should be done with cheap microcontrollers? Just add a 25 year old PC without an internet connection.
The dutch are screwed. Mass appeasment will lead to either a breakup or increased centralization. Nothing good can come from the netherlands from this and at worst they have a comissioner on the EU board (parliament does not matter in the EU, they have no power at all. and elections for it is just a popularity contest for the parties of the countries that participate in this farse)
This will set a bad example for the dictatorial countries in the EU like sweden and germany, the example that they can do only what the EU says like “good little children” and not sovereign states.
EU law means shit in most cases, catering to the lowest denominator. Sweden and Finland has to reduce it’s carbon print (countries that ot even have gas stoves) to save the planet whilst the dutch and the french are openly talking about removing nuclear, gas and coal and replacing it with cheap fennoscandian electricity. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Build your own damn power plants, there are plenty of rivers in france.