BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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Date of Hearing: April 5, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PRIVACY AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
Ed Chau, Chair
ACR 120
(Mark Stone) - As Introduced January 19, 2016
SUBJECT: Data trusts: at-risk children
SUMMARY: Declares the Legislature's support for the development
of safe and secure data sharing between public education, social
service, and research entities through the Silicon Valley
Regional Data Trust (SVRDT) as it pertains to at-risk, foster,
homeless, and justice-involved children and youth and their
families. Specifically, this bill:
1)Recognizes that children in California would benefit from a
reliable and secure data sharing environment that would assist
social service providers and public education institutions in
best responding to the personal circumstances and needs of
students and families and would allow researchers using
aggregate data to better support these efforts.
2)Recognizes that the mission of the SVRDT is to serve as a
pilot demonstration site for addressing the needs of diverse
communities using a comprehensive data-informed approach that
provides quality services and promotes a healthy, safe, and
prosperous community while safeguarding sensitive personal
data.
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3)Recognizes that improved collaborations between agencies can
help address the complex challenges of serving vulnerable
California children and their families.
4)Recognizes that the County of Santa Clara is currently
participating in the FosterVision Project with the Santa Clara
County Office of Education to share data about youth between
schools and the county in the interest of improving services
to foster and juvenile-justice-involved youth with appropriate
protections to safeguard sensitive data.
5)Recognizes that the establishment of information sharing
agreements through a tri-county regional data trust utilizing
the Santa Clara County Office of Education Data Zone as the
hub in partnership with the University of California, Santa
Cruz, will help ensure that data systems are interoperable
within and across agencies and sectors by adopting common data
standards, definitions, and language to best serve the
children in those counties.
6)Recognizes that, in order to safeguard the privacy of
California children and families, it is essential that the
data trust strictly adhere to existing state and federal law
requiring the protection of personal information and data
pertaining to students and at-risk youth and follow data
security industry best practices in the interest of protecting
California's most vulnerable youth while allowing appropriate
data access and sharing.
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7)Declares that the Legislature supports the development of safe
and secure data sharing between public education, social
service, and research entities through the SVRDT as it
pertains specifically to at-risk, foster, homeless, and
justice-involved children and youth and their families, in
order to better serve, protect, and improve the futures of
these Californians.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Protects, pursuant to the federal Family Educational Rights
and Privacy Act (FERPA), the confidentiality of educational
records (and personally identifiable information contained
therein) by prohibiting the funding of schools that permit the
release of those records. It applies to all schools that
receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S.
Department of Education. Generally, schools must have written
permission from the parent or eligible student in order to
release any information from a student's education record.
FERPA's prohibition only applies to the school itself and
contains various exemptions where the data may be released
without the written consent of the parents. (20 U.S.C. Sec.
1232g(b)(1))
2)Prohibits, pursuant to the federal Children's Online Privacy
Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), an operator of a website or
online service directed to children under the age of 13 from
collecting personal information from a child, including a
child's first and last name, home or other physical address
including street name and name of a city or town, e-mail
address, telephone number, or Social Security number. (5
U.S.C. 6501-6505)
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3)Prohibits an operator from knowingly engaging in targeted
advertising to students or their parents or legal guardians
using covered information, as defined, amassing a profile of a
K-12 student, selling a student's information, or disclosing
covered information, as provided. (Business and Professions
Code (BPC) Section 22584-85)
4)Defines an "operator" as the operator of a website, online
service, online application, or mobile application with actual
knowledge that the site, service, or application is used
primarily for K-12 school purposes and was designed and
marketed for K-12 school purposes. (BPC 22584(a))
5)Requires an operator of a commercial website or online service
that collects personally identifiable information through the
Internet about individual consumers residing in California who
use or visit its website to conspicuously post its privacy
policy. (BPC 22575)
FISCAL EFFECT: None
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose of this bill . This bill is intended to express the
Legislature's support for a regional data-sharing pilot
project designed to improve educational and social service
outcomes for youths in the foster and criminal justice
systems. The bill is sponsored by the Silicon Valley Regional
Data Trust (SVRDT).
2)Author's statement . According to the author, "Many vulnerable
California students, including those who are in foster care
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and those who are or have been involved in the juvenile
justice system, face unique challenges that make it difficult
for them to succeed academically. While both educational
institutions and social service providers offer myriad
programs to support at-risk students, students do not always
participate in programs that would benefit them, or they are
enrolled far later than they should be. Sometimes this
happens because educational institutions and social service
providers may not always share critical information about
struggling students that would trigger interventions or
enrollment in helpful programs."
"The California Legislature has prioritized closing the
achievement gap, as well as helping students in foster care
and justice-involved youth succeed academically. ACR 120
reflects this commitment to helping these students by calling
for appropriate, secure data sharing amongst service
providers. Specifically, ACR 120 supports a proposed pilot
project between the Santa Clara County Office of Education,
the San Mateo County Office of Education, [Santa Cruz County]
and the University of California Santa Cruz, in order to test
this secure data-sharing approach to improving student
outcomes. Additionally, ACR 120 calls for the data to be
accessible to researchers who seek to study the proposed pilot
project.
"ACR 120 reflects the Legislature's long-standing commitment
to helping improve educational and life outcomes of
California's students."
3)The Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust . The SVRDT 's stated
mission to apply "advanced analytics to a regional
multi-agency dataset, balancing ethical, privacy, and social
policies, to improve services and educational outcomes
especially for children of poverty."
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SVRDT supports data sharing among county agencies, school
districts, non-profits and educational technology firms to
inform regional policy, practice, and research. It intends to
use the shared data to engage in mining and analysis that will
facilitate personalization of learning plans and improvement
of service provision to children of poverty.
SVRDT is a pilot project at this stage and has not yet begun
operations. Its website does not provide a target start-up
date.
4)Data sharing, privacy and high-needs students . By its own
account, SVRDT has not yet developed its guidelines for data
privacy, saying that it "will develop guidelines for the
Regional Data Trust that define and govern what is allowable
under privacy regulations such as FERPA, HIPAA and COPPA and
will develop data sharing agreements that accordingly protect
students' privacy and confidentiality."
However, the author contends that student data would be
adequately protected under state law. "There are specific
provisions [in existing law] that allow for data collection on
student populations as long as the data remains the property
of the school district and that it be used specifically for
the tailoring of educational services by the schools, not for
anything else?[Existing law also contains] specific provisions
that allow for the existence of cloud-based data hubs that
provide services for tailored education with no commercial
use. The data is to be used and seen by teachers to support
their in class activities and improve the educational outcomes
of their students and nothing else. It is under these
conditions that the SVRDT operates in conjunction with the
Santa Clara County Office of Education."
5)Arguments in support . According to the sponsor, the SVRDT,
"ACR 120 will designate the Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust
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(SVRDT) as a pilot for implementing regional cross-agency data
sharing in order to provide better integrated services to the
region's most at-risk youth and families and could service as
a statewide model?"
"SVRDT is a partnership between the county offices of education
and health and human service agencies of San Mateo, Santa
Clara and Santa Cruz Counties and the University of
California, Santa Cruz. It will link data from schools and
health and human service agencies that serve the region's
children and families. The Santa Clara County Office of
Education's Data Zone will provide the technical
infrastructure for SVRDT. SVRDT's foundation of governance,
legal and technical infrastructures will insure the security
and privacy of data in accordance with local, state and
federal regulations. Public schools and health and human
service agencies will collaborate with university researchers
to maintain ethical standards of data access and use and to
analyze data to answer questions crucial to providing
efficient, effective and coordinated services.
"By designating SVRDT as a pilot for implementing regional
cross-agency data sharing, ACR 120 will afford SVRDT
recognition that will support its efforts to build and sustain
a secure information sharing environment and to attract
resources. As a pilot, SVRDT can inform interagency data
sharing in other regions of the state and help to shape state
policies to support interagency data sharing that improves
public services while maintaining data security and privacy."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
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Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust (sponsor)
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Hank Dempsey / P. & C.P. / (916) 319-2200