Conclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unique challenges to students, faculty, and staff of colleges in forcing an unprecedented move to online course delivery and learning. To aid in the pandemic-led shift to online classes, a wide number of technology companies have offered free or discounted tools for distance learning. Many colleges quickly adopted new ed tech and made short-term contracts and agreements with vendors; faculty often cobbled together various tools and apps themselves to continue their classes virtually.¹ As online learning continues through the pandemic, it may lead to a longer-term shift to distance learning in higher education. However, as outlined in this paper, there are a number of privacy considerations and vulnerabilities in online learning that institutions should address.

Both institutions and ed tech companies need to be clearer about their policies and practices for collecting and using student data. A lack of transparency has been a particular problem in aspects of higher education online learning. Relationships between schools and OPMs are often unclear, including terms of data use and protections.² And there is often little transparency into how video and other data captured during online classes and proctoring of online exams will be used, who will be able to view it, and how securely and for how long it will be stored.³ While it is perhaps understandable that colleges needed to quickly pivot to remote learning as the pandemic began, now is the time to ensure the technologies being used are protecting the privacy of student data. Schools may not only need to update their privacy policies and vendor contracts, but also their own privacy practices and principles to reflect increased reliance on online learning and new data sharing and data integration practices.