Google criticized for deceptively tracking student web activity without permission

Google has become the target of a complaint brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The advocacy group has requested the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigate the technology company, claiming that Google is “collecting and data mining school children’s personal information, including their Internet searches.”

The EFF says that it discovered that Google’s Chromebooks, along with its Apps for Education, are not completely protecting the privacy of students, instead collecting data and tracking their Internet browsing activity for non-advertising purposes — without obtaining permission from the students or their parents.

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“Google’s practices fly in the face of commitments made when it signed the Student Privacy Pledge, a legally enforceable document whereby companies promise to refrain from collecting, using, or sharing students’ personal information except when needed for legitimate educational purposes or if parents provide permission,” the EFF remarked.

The Student Privacy Pledge was launched in 2014 and is meant to provide safeguards to protect the privacy of students. It dictates that service providers like Google will not sell student information, won’t use behaviorally targeted advertising, will only use data for authorized education purposes, will follow strict limits on data retention, and more.

Google has made it a point to tout its inclusion in the educational system. More than 40 million students, teachers, and administrators currently use its Google Apps for Education to “learn, communicate, and work together more efficiently,” and countless more students around the world are using a Chromebook to accelerate their learning and improve access to knowledge.

The EFF doesn’t have a problem with this technology being used in the classroom — it would just rather Google and other companies not violate user privacy when doing so, especially concerning students.

This complaint stemmed from results uncovered during the EFF’s “Spying on Students” campaign aimed at seeing which technology is violating user privacy. The organization said it discovered that Google’s “Sync” feature within its Chrome browser is enabled by default on Chromebooks and this feature allows the company to track, store, and data mine information like which sites a student visits, ever search term they use, the results they click on, and more.

When contacted by the EFF, Google said that it would soon “disable a setting on school Chromebooks that allows Chrome Sync data…to be shared with other Google services.” But this wasn’t enough to satisfy the advocacy group as it believes that more should be done, which is why it has filed a complaint with the FTC.

A Google spokesperson provided VentureBeat with a statement, saying: “Our services enable students everywhere to learn and keep their information private and secure. While we appreciate EFF’s focus on student privacy, we are confident that these tools comply with both the law and our promises, including the Student Privacy Pledge.”