Are you aware that your child’s rights were violated during the pandemic? Human Rights Watch speaks out against EdTech

BY PAUL JUNOR

Since its creation in 1978, Human Rights Watch, formerly known as Helsinki Watch has been at the forefront of defending and protecting human rights according to its website: www.hrw.org. As an international nongovernmental organization, it investigates and documents human rights violations and advocates for policies to prevent such abuses.

On Wednesday, May 25^th, 2022, it released a report titled, “How Dare They Peep into My Private Life?: Children’s Rights Violations by Governments that Endorsed Online Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The report was based on technical and policy analysis of 164 technology (EdTech) products that were being utilized by 49 countries.

There was an examination of 290 companies that were involved in the collection, processing, and obtaining of children’s data since March 2021. The summary of the report states that the governments endorsements of the majority of these online learning platforms put at risk or directly violated children’s privacy and other children’s rights, for purposes unrelated to their education.

“There is no doubt the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the lives of students worldwide as governments were forced to resort to online learning to offset the lack of in-person learning.” The report states, “In their rush to connect children to virtual classrooms few governments checked whether the EDTech they were rapidly endorsing or procuring for schools were safe for children. As a result, children whose families were able to afford access to the internet and connected devices, or who made hard sacrifices in order to do so, were exposed to the privacy practices of the EdTech products.”

The methodology involved analysis on each product to assess how it handled children’s data, then compared the results to the product’s privacy policy to determine whether the EDTech company disclosed its data practices to children and their caregivers.

The report notes, “Governments should conduct data privacy audits, and immediately notify and guide affected schools, teachers, parents, and children to prevent further collection and abuse of children’s data.”

The report outlines a list of recommendations to the government such as:

• Adopt child-specific data protection laws that address the significant child rights impacts of the collection, processing, and use of children’s personal data.
• Enact and enforce laws ensuring that companies respect children’s rights and are held accountable if they fail to do so.
• Require child rights impact assessments in any public procurement processes that provide essential services to children through technology.
• Ban behavioural advertising to children.
• Ban the profiling of children.

There are additional recommendations to ministries and departments of education, education technology companies and advertising companies as well as other third-party companies that may receive data from EdTech products.

The full report can be seen at the Human Rights Watch’s website: https://www.hrw.org