Dive Brief:

• California legislators approved a bipartisan student-privacy bill that will most likely become law at the end of this month.
• The most extensive of the nation's student-data laws, this one has three components: Educational sites, apps, and cloud services within schools are prohibited from selling or disclosing personal information about K-12 students, from using the data for marketing services, and from creating files on that data..
• As tech's sphere expands across the K-12 arena, some parents fear data will get into the wrong hands — i.e., anyone from aggressive marketers to college admissions officers.

Dive Insight:

While California's bills may be the broadest and most comprehensive thus far, the past year has seen over 100 bills introduced nationally regarding the management, collection, and dissemination of student data. A big reason for this was spurred over the InBloom hoopla last year. The cloud-based company, which had contracts in New York and various other states, received backlash from parents and advocacy groups who were nervous about the security of the data. After enough pushback and contract terminations, InBloom ultimately shuttered. The controversy sparked debate over data security and, in some cases, even new laws like the one that will most likely pass in California.