BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1442
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 1442 (Gatto)
As Amended August 22, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |78-0 |(May 15, 2014) |SENATE: |36-0 |(August 26, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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Original Committee Reference: JUD.
SUMMARY : Requires a school district that gathers and maintains
information about a student from social media to notify students
and parents, limits the information that it collects, and
destroy the information when no longer needed as specified.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires a school district, county office of education, or
charter school administration (school district) that considers
a program to gather and maintain in its records personal
information obtained through social media on any student
enrolled in the school district to notify the students,
parents, and guardians about the proposed program and provide
an opportunity for public comment, as specified, prior to the
adoption of any such program. In addition, a school district
that adopts such a program shall do all of the following:
a) Gather and maintain only information that pertains
directly to school safety or to student safety.
b) Provide students with access to any personal information
about the student gathered or maintained by the school
district and obtained from social media, and the
opportunity to correct or delete information gathered or
maintained by the school district.
c) Destroy personal information gathered from social media
maintained in its records within one year after a student
turns 18 years of age or within one year after the student
is no longer enrolled in the school district, whichever is
first, and to notify each parent or guardian of this
policy.
d) If the school district contracts with a third party to
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gather personal information from social media on any
student enrolled in the school district, then the contract
shall do all of the following:
i) Prohibit the third party from using the information
for purposes other than to satisfy the contract.
ii) Prohibit the third party from selling or sharing the
information with any person or entity other than the
school district, or the pupil or his or her guardian.
iii) Require the third party to destroy the information
immediately upon satisfying the terms of the contract, or
within one year of a student turning 18 years of age or
is no longer enrolled in the school, as specified.
The Senate amendments :
1)Limit the information that may be collected to that which
pertains to school or student safety.
2)Delete or modify redundant definitions.
3)Make technical and clarifying changes.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS : In recent years, in California and elsewhere, parents
and school officials have confronted the problem of
"cyberbullying" - or the use of electronic media by one student
to harass, intimidate, or generally terrorize another student.
While social media monitoring may be a reasonable response to
bullying, however, to the author and privacy advocates contend
that such monitoring, if not reasonably limited, could create
substantial privacy concerns.
This bill seeks to limit the amount of information that schools
collect when monitoring students and requires the destruction of
that information at a certain point. Specifically, this bill
would only permit the school to monitor and collect information
from social media postings if such information pertains to
school or student safety. The bill would require the school to
notify students and parents of any plan to gather social media
content, and to provide an opportunity for public comment before
adopting such a program. The bill would also permit a student
to have access to any information that the school maintains and
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to correct or delete any information that is gathered or
maintained. Finally, the bill would require the school district
to destroy any social media information that it gathers and
maintains within one year of the student turning 18 years of
age, or within one year after the student is no longer enrolled
in the school district, whichever comes first. Recognizing that
many districts may, like the Glendale Unified School District,
contract with a third party to perform the monitoring, this bill
would also impose similar restrictions on the third party, and
expressly prohibits the third party from selling, sharing, or
disclosing the information to any entity other than the school
district, or to the student or his or her guardian.
It is important to stress what this bill does not do. It does
not authorize schools to engage in any form of monitoring in
which they cannot already engage. Although schools, like any
other person or entity, have the right to access social media
information that is publicly posted and accessible, a school's
ability to use and act upon such information is limited by any
number of legal and constitutional principles. For example, a
school could not punish a student for social media postings if
those postings constituted protected speech under the First
Amendment, nor could a student be punished for his or her
postings if the punishment did not meet the grounds for
disciplinary actions set forth in Education Code Section 48907
et seq. If a school district maintains the information in its
school records, then the school district cannot disclose any
information from those records in violation of the federal
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or the parallel
privacy provisions in the California Education Code that
protects the privacy of student records. This bill would
similarly impose constraints if a school district adopts a
social media monitoring program that is not otherwise
prohibited.
Analysis Prepared by : Thomas Clark / JUD. / (916) 319-2334
FN: 0005423
AB 1442
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