Student Data Privacy Legislation: A Summary of 2016 State Legislation

Student data privacy was a priority issue in state legislatures in 2016, though as expected, states passed fewer student data privacy bills into law than they did in 2014 and 2015. The privacy conversation has evolved since 2014, and now states have the ability to borrow from each other: California’s 2014 Student Online Personal Information Protection Act (SOPIPA), the first to attempt to legislate the permissible activities of school service providers in the digital age, served as a model for many states this session. Most of the states that passed new laws in 2016 had already passed a student data privacy law, a sign that states are building on their efforts.