Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have reintroduced a bill to protect students' information privacy online.

The Protecting Student Privacy Act would require educational software and digital content companies to protect students' sensitive personal data, prevent using students' personally identifiable information (PII) for targeted marketing, give parents the right to access PII and amend it, require disclosing which outside parties have access to the info, minimize the PII obtained and require the PII to be deleted when it has served its educational purpose.

The senators pointed out in reintroducing the bill that educational software and digital content is an $8 billion annual business, and said 95% percent of school districts send student records to outside companies to manage school services, while only 7% of those districts "directly prevent the companies from selling students’ data that includes everything from grades to test scores, attendance records and family relationships."

The bill would update the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

A group of Senate Democrats led by Judiciary Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has introduced a new data privacy and security bill.

According to Leahy's office, the bill, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act: "Requires companies who store sensitive personal or financial information on 10,000 customers or more to meet consumer privacy and data security standards to keep this information safe, and notify the customer within 30 days of a breach." 

It "establishes a broad definition of information that must be protected, including social security numbers; financial account information; online usernames and passwords; unique biometric data, including fingerprints; information about a person’s physical and mental health; information about a person’s geolocation; and access to private digital photographs and videos.

"Requires companies to inform federal law enforcement of all large breaches, as well as breaches that involved federal government databases or law enforcement or national security personnel.

"Guarantees a federal baseline of strong consumer privacy protections for all Americans."

The bill would supersede weaker state laws, but not stronger ones. Preemption of stronger state laws for a weaker national standard has been a recurring Democratic criticism of Republican-backed privacy bills.

“Today, data security is not just about protecting our identities and our bank accounts; it is about protecting our privacy.  Americans want to know not just that their bank account and credit cards are safe and secure, they want to know that their emails and their private pictures are protected as well,” Senator Leahy said in a statement.  “Companies who benefit financially from our personal information should be obligated to take steps to keep it safe, and to notify us when those protections have failed. The Consumer Privacy Protection Act would provide these needed reforms, and all lawmakers who support consumers should support this bill.”

“We are very pleased to finally see some forward-looking members of Congress introduce a privacy bill that is truly pro-consumer," said Laura Moy, senior policy counsel of New America’s Open Technology Institute. "Recently we have seen too many so-called ‘privacy’ bills that would actually replace strong state-level protections with a weaker national standard. Consumer and privacy advocates have been disappointed by those proposals, and have been very clear that we cannot support legislative proposals that represent a net loss for consumers."

Bill cosponsors include Sens. Al Franken (Minn.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Edward J. Markey (Mass.).

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have introduced a bill that would protect digital student records. Educational software and digital content is a $7.9 billion market, they point out.

"With the business of storing and sifting through records of students growing as fast as students are, Congress must act to ensure that safeguards are in place for data that is shared with outside companies," said Markey, who has been a leading  voice for protecting data privacy online, particularly where kids are concerned.

The bill, the Protecting Student Privacy Act of 2014, would require security safeguards for sensitive student data held by private companies; prohibit the use of student PII (personally identifiable information" to advertiser any product or service; give parents the right to access their children's PII in the hands of private companies and change it if it is wrong; require access to the name of all outside parties with student PII; require minimization of PII transferred from schools to private companies, and ensures those companies cannot maintain detailed databases in perpetuity.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), which represents those third parties, says the legislation means well but is redundant, unworkable in some cases, and unnecessary.

"The current framework of robust federal regulations, industry best practices and binding contracts provides strong student privacy protections," said Mark MacCarthy, VP of public policy for SIIA.  With these three layers of protection, we can give students access to revolutionary learning technology while ensuring that their information is used only for educational purposes. New federal student privacy legislation is not needed at this time. 

“The Markey-Hatch legislation is well-intended, but it contains provisions, such as a prohibition against the use of student information for targeted advertising, that already exist in current law and regulation. Other provisions, such as those related to data destruction, might not be workable in practice.