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New Hampshire and Oregon Pass Student Privacy Laws
Practical Law Legal Update 8-616-6448 (Approx. 3 pages)
New Hampshire and Oregon Pass Student Privacy Laws
by Practical Law Intellectual Property & Technology
| Published on 23 Jun 2015 • New Hampshire, Oregon |
New Hampshire has enacted a student privacy law, and the Oregon legislature has passed a similar student privacy bill that is expected to be signed into law.
Following a recent trend, both New Hampshire and Oregon recently passed student privacy legislation designed to protect the privacy of K-12 students' personally identifiable information. Both states modeled their legislation on California's recently adopted Student Online Personal Information Protection Act relating to website and mobile application operators that market their products for use for K-12 education purposes (see Legal Update, California Enacts Law Protecting Student Privacy and Amends Data Breach Statute).
On June 11, 2015, New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan signed H.B. 520 into law. Among other things, H.B. 520:
- Requires operators of websites, online platforms and applications targeting students and their families (Operators) to create and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to protect certain covered information about students from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure.
- Broadly defines "covered information" as "personally identifiable information or materials" provided to Operators by students, their schools, their parents or legal guardians or otherwise gathered by the Operators that include students':
- name;
- address;
- date of birth;
- telephone number; and
- educational records.
- Prohibits Operators from using covered information for targeted advertising.
The law goes into effect on January 1, 2016.
On June 10, 2015, the Oregon legislature passed the Oregon Student Information Protection Act (S.B. 187). Governor Kate Brown is expected to sign the bill, which will take effect on July 1, 2016. Among other things, the Oregon law:
- Shares the New Hampshire law's definition of covered information and provides similar restrictions on the Operators' use of covered information.
- Prohibits Operators from:
- selling students' information;
- presenting students with targeted advertisements; and
- disclosing students' information to third parties, in limited circumstances.
- Allows Operators to use de-identified student information to improve or market their products' effectiveness.