Dive Brief:
- The New York State Education Department’s first chief privacy officer will be Temitope Akinyemi, a former privacy officer and attorney from the state’s Office of Information Technology Services.
- The Staten Island Advance reports Akinyemi will be expected to develop policies and procedures that keep confidential data of students, parents and educators safe, and then implement and oversee their adoption statewide.
- The 2014-15 state budget required the creation of a chief privacy officer position, and Akinyemi will make $112,200, reporting to the department’s general counsel.
Dive Insight:
When the Common Core State Standards were being implemented, a parallel initiative to launch a longitudinal data system to track student outcomes helped torpedo parent support. In New York, critics were especially loud, demanding a commitment to data privacy and security that ultimately won Akinyemi’s appointment.
Georgia has also responded to similar demands. Lawmakers passed the Student Data, Privacy, Accessibility and Transparency Act in 2015 and the state Department of Education’s technology management director gained new responsibility with the chief privacy officer role. Levette Williams had already overseen the collection and reporting of K-12 data before becoming the CPO, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.