Kentucky Senate OKs Bill Aiming to Protect Student Data

  A bill aimed to protect student data unanimously passed the Kentucky Senate last week and will now head to the House for consideration.State Sen. Jimmy Higdon, a Lebanon Republican, sponsored the bill that primarily concentrates on monitoring information collected by third-party technology companies.“We’re concerned about the storage of student data, aka the cloud,” he said.  “We know for a fact that some of that data is being sold and we just want to make sure that student data is private,” Higdon said.He said rapidly evolving technology is creating more opportunities for students to be targets of privacy violations.Higdon hopes the bill will instill legislation that requires technology outlets not associated with local school districts to be transparent with what data is being collected and where it is being stored. He said the bill will ensure data remains secure within the Kentucky Department of Education.“The bill covers a lot of territory and there a lot of issues that need to be addressed,” he said.Upon reaching the House, Higdon expects some concerns to arise about certain aspects of the bill and some changes to be introduced.“The legislative process takes some turns and twists,” he said. “It will be interesting to follow this process.”