Data Privacy Issues In Education System Putting Children At Risk

Cybersecurity issues are so widespread that they are even harmful to children in schools. The modern education system tends to provide documents over the internet which provides easy-going and efficiency for both the students and the teachers. However, with this convenience comes a threat. Online criminals could use the data that leaked out from the schools, to make calculated threats to take advantage of those children.

Writing on news.com.au, Michael Uren, a spokesperson for the Australia Students Privacy Coalition, stated that, if there is a politician or football player that the hacker wanted to target, the only information that is needed is the first and last name of their children. He continued, that the issues arose from the school posting pictures of the names of their children who were involved in school events. He said, “Between a few different sources, you have found kids who are nearby, where they go to school and a direct means to contact them. Predators can exploit this and use it to groom children.”

There is a couple of initiatives in which schools could take to lessen the threats. One of them is that the schools should incorporate this issue into the education system, helping students to protect themselves, not only from data leaked threats that occurred from a loophole in the education system, but also other internet-related issues. Another would be for the schools themselves to apply safety guidelines to their education system. According to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, writing on news.com.au, she stated: “eSafety provided brief guidance on how schools could use other email identifiers and recommended their ICT (information technology) and security personnel examine whether the configuration of Google Apps for Education ensures the privacy and security of students and their accounts.” Due to the adaptation of the modern education system that uses e-mails and web applications to connect with students, a large amount of students and teacher’s data and information has been uploaded, and it is also one of the sources that could be targeted by the internet criminals. Especially with young children, they may have full awareness of how valuable their data on the internet is and what the risks are.

Sophanith Song

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