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EArnest Grasshopper Talking

Privacy policies and your kids

3/25/2022

1 Comment

 
Big corporations are violating your kids privacy with Richardson Independent School District's permission and the district isn't telling you because they don't want to kill the golden goose and actually take responsibility.  They'd rather exploit your kids -it's much cheaper than paying for the 'free' software they use.
To get an idea of just how absurd the idea is that parents or children of RISD could actually make an informed choice to agree or not to the privacy policies of the 198 ad partners of the learning tool, Live Worksheet that's used in the classroom, that no one can opt of, here's a link to just one of those privacy policies of just one those ad partners that Live Worksheets uses.  

SALE OF INFORMATION. In order to accommodate changes in our business, we may sell, buy or otherwise transfer portions of our company or other companies or assets, including the information collected through this Site. In the event of a proposed or actual purchase, sale (including a liquidation, realization, foreclosure or repossession), lease, merger, amalgamation or any other type of acquisition, disposal, transfer, conveyance or financing of all or substantially all of the assets of Aarki, user information (including Personal Data) will be one of the assets transferred to the transferee. 

So, in a nutshell they sell user data-they collect data on our kids and sell it.  To whom?  for what?  Who knows, we don't have any control over that it's not our, or our kid's data any more it's Aarki's. 

Well, OK, that horse will get out of the barn-what do they collect?  
  • PERSONAL INFORMATION. When you register for the Service, Aarki may ask you for Personal Data including but not limited to your name, business name, business address, phone number, e-mail address, contact preferences, and billing information. We use this Personal Data to remain in contact with you about your use of Aarki Services and for the purposes of billing. We may retain your Personal Data after you cease to use Aarki Services for our accounting and business records.
Alright, I guess if the kids register it's the whole enchilada.  Uhh, dammit.  But surely they won't register right?  Well, who knows because it's all a black box-we have no idea whether they register or not.  If in the best of circumstances they're only using Live Worksheets to take French or Geography etc what kind of data will they be giving up if they don't register:

  1. Our servers automatically recognize information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website, which may include information such as the domain names and Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of visitors to the Site, as well as the browser type and the date and time of the browser’s access to the Site. No Personal Data about you is revealed in this process and we generally treat information collected by such process as non-personal data. However, to the extent that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered Personal Data by applicable law, we treat these identifiers as Personal Data.
  2. The Site may also gather anonymous "traffic data" that does not personally identify you, but that may be helpful for marketing purposes or for improving the services we offer.
  3. Aarki uses services to capture session usage of some areas of the site to assist with Customer troubleshooting and learn about Customer usage of the Site to help us make decisions about product improvements. Session captures are limited to select areas of the Aarki site only and do not record any other browser or computer activity. As part of session information we collect account, IP, and browser and operating system data. We do not capture any password inputs.

So, they automatically know-what browser you're using and IP-so where you are, the date, the time, and domain name so RISD.ORG-so they would know it's a school.  In the US this information isn't treated as 'personal data' in Europe it is considered personal and protected.  
Aarki gathers 'traffic data' which sounds innocuous.  This is the network data generated when you go to a web site the IP packets necessary to transfer the data to and from the site.  The network traffic.  So it's the information about which sites the kids go to so the ads can be targeted appropriately.
Aarki analyzes network traffic within the site itself i.e., they note how how many page views the site has how many unique views a certain area has etc.  There are probably other areas captured here as well but the do not appear to focus on anything outside of the site.  They do know who is doing it though as they know it's the same IP throughout.  

I'm not an attorney but the following paragraph doesn't square with with the previous one and, frankly, I'd be inclined to believe that they would indeed sell the data and then if asked simply say-'we told we would'!

  1. PERSONAL INFORMATION. We will not sell, distribute or rent your Personal Data with any third parties without your consent, except to our trusted business partners for the purpose of providing you with, and operating and maintaining, the Site and Service, to comply with applicable law or as otherwise specified herein. We may use your Personal Data and/or share it with certain third parties to activate and maintain your account, verify your identity, check your qualifications, or follow up or resolve with transactions or queries initiated on the Site, including, but not limited to, processing your credit card payment or other payment, if applicable. Please note that we have appropriate data privacy safeguards in place with our third party business partners with whom we share your Personal Data and who are providing services or functions on our behalf. We may also use your contact information to inform you of any changes to the Site or Service, respond to your questions, inquiries, comments and instructions, take good faith steps to enforce the terms of use with respect to the Site and Service, maintain the security and integrity of the Site and Service or our systems, or to send you additional information about Aarki.

This is 1 of 198 privacy policies of 198 ad partners of Live Worksheets.  It is absurd to consider that the parents of the kids in RISD would review and 'agree' to each of these.  Who on earth would agree to this with their kids???!!  My kids are 13, 13, and 17.  My bet is Live Worksheets are used with kids a lot younger and Richardson Independent School District is allowing their data to be sold and simply not alerting parents to this fact.  It's unconscionable yet might makes right doesn't it?  They are the biggest kid on the block so they'll do whatever they want with whatever kid is sent to them.  For as long as they can get away with it.  


1 Comment
Kevin Hudson link
10/10/2022 09:58:08 pm

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