White Papers

Washington, DC – Today, the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) released a new survey, Beyond One Classroom: Parental Support for Technology and Data Use in Schools. The survey asked parents to comprehensively outline their goals and concerns about the use of technology and student data. Their answers, and the conclusions that can be drawn from them, should inform the debate regarding local, state, and national policies concerning K-12 education and data use.

FPF has produced a checklist to assist parents and schools in considering the “basics” of security standards on new ed tech products and services they may be considering or using. In on-line security, there is unfortunately no “one size fits all” solution, but with so many products and services available, this checklist is designed to provide some initial key triggers of areas that either meet a basic threshold, or might serve as discussion points for further review with the company involved.

Today, the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) released, “Supporting Parental Choice for Student Data.” The paper discusses the importance of trusting parents to make the final decision on when and where to share their child’s educational information outside of the school environment.

Washington, DC – Today, the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) released Best Practices for Consumer Wearables and Wellness Apps and Devices, a detailed set of guidelines that responsible companies can follow to ensure they provide practical privacy protections for consumer-generated health and wellness data. The document was produced with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and incorporates input from a wide range of stakeholders including companies, advocates, and regulators.

The Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) filed its report, Always On: Privacy Implications of Microphone-Enabled Devices, with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in response to the Commission’s request for public comments regarding the privacy implications of Smart TVs. On December 7, 2016, the FTC will be holding a Smart TV Workshop to explore the intricacies of tracking technologies and best practices for addressing consumer privacy on entertainment systems.

Washington, DC – Today, in response to the Administration’s call-to-action on privacy protections related to drone operations, Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), Intel, and PrecisionHawk released Drones and Privacy by Design: Embedding Privacy Enhancing Technology in Unmanned Aircraft. The report highlights examples of privacy enhancing technologies and “Privacy-by-Design” applied to drones.

FPF’s 19 Times Data Analysis Empowered Students and Schools goes on to demonstrate the power of data to show school, districts, parents, and students, the trends and outcomes that are occurring, and inspire ways to make those outcomes better. This paper identifies 19 studies – a relatively small sample – where data was successfully used […]

Future of Privacy Forum filed comments with the FTC in advance of the FTC’s Cross Device Workshop on Nov. 16, 2015. FPF’s Jules Polonetsky and Stacey Gray have also prepared a report version of the comments, Cross-Device: Understanding the State of State Management, which aims to describe how and why the advertising and marketing industries are […]

In FPF’s report “Beyond the Fear Factor: Parental Support for Technology and Data Use in Schools,” we investigate prevailing attitudes towards the emerging use of technology and data in education and children’s deepening online presence.  Analysis of these data allowed FPF to create a series of recommendations to both ed tech developers and schools. You […]

FPF has released its newest paper, Student Data and De-Identification: Understanding De-Identification of Education Records and Related Requirements of FERPA.  Prepared in partnership with Reg Leichty of Foresight Law + Policy, this paper provides an overview of the different tools used to de-identify data to various degrees, based on the type of information involved, and […]