Statement on the NYS Comptroller’s audit of NYC’s Privacy and Security of Student Data

 

For immediate release: May 4, 2025

For more information: Leonie Haimson, info@studentprivacymatters; 917-435-9329

The audit from the State Comptroller’s office released today confirms what many NYC advocates have long known:  the privacy policies and practices of the NYC Dept. of Education are sloppy, irresponsible and show a lack of concern for keeping students’ personal information safe from breach and misuse.   This makes DOE’s insistent push to rapidly expand the use of Artificial Intelligence tools in our schools unwarranted, given how these tools represent an even greater risk to student  privacy and safety. 

Even more troubling is the DOE contemptuous response to the auditors’ findings and recommendations to improve their processes, dismissing nearly each one as unfounded.  Altogether, the audit’s findings reinforce the lack of trust felt by many in DOE’s competence and caring when it comes to protecting student privacy.

The audit’s findings put in question the AI guidance’s assurances on DOE’s ability to keep student data safe

In the recent DOE AI guidance, they repeat over and over that student privacy is rigorously protected through a vetting  process  called ERMA (Enterprise Request Management Application).   Yet the findings in this audit show that  DOE’s privacy processes are inherently defective.   The DOE’s lack of responsiveness and willingness to improve their privacy policies provide yet more evidence  that their rush to expand the use of AI in our schools is reckless.   AI  products represent a special risk to student privacy as many  data-mine personal data to improve their products, which violates the state student privacy law, Ed Law 2D, the NY State Student Privacy law passed by the legislature in 2014.

The audit’s findings, as well as repeated data breaches of NYC student data and its illegal use for commercial purposes reveal the inadequacy of the  DOE’s privacy vetting process.  As a member of the Chancellor’s AI Working Group, I along with other members proposed additional safeguards.  These included independent privacy impact assessments, data security audits, and tests for algorithmic bias that should be required for any educational product using AI.  DOE rejected all these recommendations.   Additional problems with the recently released AI guidance, including their refusal to rigorously comply with the state privacy law,  are described in our critique here.

The findings confirm DOE’s failure to properly control and safeguard personal student information

The auditors discovered that DOE maintains  no central records as to which vendors and other third parties have access to student personal information, and that they maintain no written policies covering data classification, risk assessment, or backup and recovery, as required by the NIST data security framework specified by Ed Law 2D. 

In their response, DOE officials claim  that this conclusion is false, and that they are “able to determine which SIS or other applications that consume student data are in use by a given school or office.”  Yet just last week, on April 28, 2026, the DOE privacy office confirmed in an email to a parent that “at this time, there is no Central list of every educational technology tool used by each school.” 

Moreover, according to Ed Law 2D, it is every parent’s right to know which vendors have access to their children’s data, and to receive a copy of the data held by those vendors  within 45 days of their request. Yet this right is chronically  violated by DOE officials, and when parents do receive data files from their vendors, the files can be empty of information.

There are more than 700  companies and other third parties that have access to personal student data according to the DOE website, though the number of the ed tech programs used is likely greater,  as some vendors provide schools with more than one product.   The number of products collecting and processing student data has steadily increased each year, and is even now even more rapidly growing, as DOE adds  new products with AI functionality that can be used in classrooms throughout the city.

Delays in recognizing and reporting breaches

Because DOE officials do not know which schools use which products, they are unable to ensure that when data breaches occur, they are able to inform affected families within the legally required timeline or identify which data elements may have been exposed.

The auditors reported that there were at least 141 breaches of NYC personal student data  between January 5, 2023 through February 27, 2025, and in 48% of cases, the DOE reported them to  NYSED past the legal deadline of 10 days.  In at least one case, it took over 460 days.  DOE also missed the 60 day deadline to inform parents that their children’s data had been breached in at least 11% of the time. [Note: 60 days is in itself too long; NY law requires breach notification by private businesses  and state agencies within 30 days.]

The Illuminate breach and problems with their privacy agreement

Yet some vendor agreements are never even listed online in violation of the law - like that of Illuminate, which exposed the data of more than a million NYC current and former students in 2022, and yet whose privacy agreement was posted online only after the breach occurred.  Even then,  the agreement hinted that the data was not always encrypted, contrary to the requirements of the law, which turned out to be the case. 

The Illuminate example also shows that  DOE does not independently investigate breaches but instead relies on the unreliable reporting of vendors concerning the number and identity of students involved. After the data of more than 800,000 current and former NYC students was breached by Illuminate between late December 2021 and early January 2022, their families were not notified by DOE until March 25, 2022. 

Even worse, in May 2024, more than two years after the breach, a  second round of notifications to families revealed that about  380,000 more students and former students also had their information exposed by this breach.  This was also seven months after Illuminate had informed DOE of the additional students involved – far exceeding the 60 day deadline in the law, according to the information on the DOE website, which states that they started looking into this matter only after being told by Illuminate that more students were affected in October 2023.  This put additional students and former students at risk of identity theft and more, and unable to promptly acquire the insurance and credit monitoring offered by the vendor for free.

The PowerSchool breach and problems with their privacy agreement

After the massive nationwide breach of the PowerSchool student information system occurred in late December 2024,  parents throughout the country and elsewhere in the state were informed of the breach in early January 2025.  Yet at that time, DOE told a reporter they were still looking into whether any NYC schools or students were affected.

 In fact, DOE refused to confirm which schools were affected even after Daily News reported on their names  on February 6, 2025, from information relayed by the State Education Department.  Only after the Daily News reported on this did parents whose students attended these schools receive emails saying DOE was still looking into this matter.  It was not until April  2025  that DOE confirmed to parents that their children’s data had been breached, long past  the 60-day deadline in the law.  To this day, it is unclear whether the thousands of former students whose data was also exposed were ever informed.

To this day, the DOE has refused to post the names of the NYC schools affected by the PowerSchool breach on the webpage that reports on data security incidents, despite guidance from the NYSED that they should do so promptly in the case of the PowerSchool breach, to alert the thousands of former students whose data was also exposed and put at risk of identity theft and worse. 

As the former NYSED Chief Privacy Officer Louise de Candia wrote me on Feb.3, 2025, “ There is no doubt in my mind that PowerSchool violated Education Law Section 2-d and Part 121 of the regulations which require compliance with NIST CSF as well as reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality and integrity of PII.”

And yet  DOE continues to allow NYC schools to use as many as 16 other privacy-invasive PowerSchool products, including Naviance, which is employed in many if not most New York high schools for college guidance purposes. This is despite the fact that in 2022, it was reported that Naviance  targeted ads for colleges on its student-facing platform disguised as objective recommendations and was shown to allow colleges to discriminate by race by targeting ads only to white students.

More recently, it was announced that PowerSchool had agreed to settle a class action lawsuit  alleging that the Naviance  platform contained ad tracking technology that transmitted a wide range of student data to Google, Microsoft and a company called Heap, including their names, ID numbers, graduation years,  demographic information, photographs and survey responses, as well as  their private communications with teachers.  This would violate not only state privacy laws but also the federal wiretapping statute.   Even now, the DOE has refused to tell parents or students about the Naviance agreement or  inform them they can apply for a portion of the $17.25 million settlement. 

The fact that the Illuminate and PowerSchool breaches exposed the data of many thousands of NYC students who had long graduated or otherwise left the system also shows that the data minimization and deletion by vendors required by Ed Lawa 2D is not enforced by DOE. More background here. 

To make things worse, the PowerSchool privacy agreement still posted on the DOE website is clearly non-compliant with the law, as it says that the company will only conform to the privacy requirements in federal and state law or in their contract with DOE when it is “commercially reasonable.”

Other problems highlighted in the audit and the DOE’s official response

The Comptroller’s office also found significant weaknesses in DOE’s technical data security controls that should be corrected, including “issues with system monitoring, unsupported systems, and firewalls.” Understandably, the auditors only communicated the details of these security weaknesses to DOE in a separate confidential report.  In their response, DOE makes no commitment to address these technical problems, but instead says that they would address them separately, within the confidential report.

In its response, DOE  claims to have made “several improvements to its privacy practices and policies,” including updating the Chancellor’s Regulation A-820 to “restrict the use of “directory information.”

In fact, the recent amendment to the Chancellor’s Regulation weakened the protections for student data, by redefining  a wide and essentially unlimited range of personal student information, including but not limited to their names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, photographs, grade level, participation in activities and sports, and more, as directory data that can be shared with third parties, even when they are not providing services to schools.  Only an unreliable parent opt out  process was provided to prevent these disclosures from occurring.

Finally, the auditors also revealed that DOE officials took an inordinate time to respond to their requests; and that documentation requests took over five months to fulfill, while requests for meetings took two months  to schedule.  

Leonie Haimson is the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a member of the NYSED Data Privacy Advisory Committee, the Chancellor’s Data Privacy Working Group and the Chancellor’s AI Working Group

 

Last night at the PEP, we defeated another AI product, this time for Prek to 2nd graders

April 30, 2026

Last night was an eye-opening evening at the Panel for Educational Policy.  After gathering outside for a short rally led by the indomitable teacher-activist Martina Meijer,  we entered the school building to join other parents as the meeting began at 6 PM.

Though thankfully, the proposal for the AI high school was scrapped before the meeting,  because of parent pushback, along with several controversial plans to relocate, close and truncate a number of Manhattan schools, there were still plenty of parents eager to speak, as well as many students who were there to advocate for expanding the Lower Manhattan Community Middle School through 12^th grade,  now that space in their building will be available since the AI High school will not be taking up room in 26 Broadway.

Attendees also spoke out against the budget, the capital plan, and of course AI.  I urged the  the panelists to vote against the capital plan, which would provide less than half the space necessary than the School Construction Authority itself has admitted for the DOE to comply with the class size law.

The SCA itself testified last month that  they are in the process of revising the plan to make it better able to allow for smaller classes, so that any vote to approve it now was clearly premature.  Many others in the audience as well as the panelists themselves pointed out other critical deficiencies with the plan, as well as the general incompetence of the SCA, given the excessive costs and delays in their completion of projects, as well as their chronic lack of responsiveness to community input. 

Yet the capital plan passed easily anyway, as it has every year – showing yet again how inadequate Mayoral control is as a system in requiring real accountability from our governmental agencies.

However, the numerous comments of parents against the rush to install AI in our classrooms seemed to have an effect, particularly as one of the contracts on the agenda for an AI program called Age of Learning, designed for students in grades PreK to 2^nd grade, was voted down. 

 

This rejection was despite the fact that three different representatives of the company including its owner were there to speak  in its defense, though their presence seemed to annoy the panel members more than impress them.   

 

Several of the panel members themselves spoke against the expansion of AI, including the two student members and Manhattan parent member Naveed Hasan.  Debra Altman, the Staten Island parent member, said that the main problem in our schools was less AI than excessive screen time, and that the PEP should  pass a resolution similar to the one recently passed by the Los Angeles school board, that would limit computer use in schools and potentially allow parents to opt out.  That would be terrific.  

  

I want to thank all the parents and teachers who came out in support of a moratorium, and spoke so eloquently and clearly on the dangers that AI pose to their children. The video of the meeting is here; many of the comments are illuminating a.  I especially want to point out the dynamite speech of Rev. LaTicia Thompson of CEC 8 at 1:51, who  said   “Until we have system-wide STEAM programs,  AI is a ‘NO’. Until every child can have recess outside in a state-of-the-art yard, AI is a ‘NO’. And until we really leave no child left behind, AI is a ‘NO’.'

 

Please also remember to purchase a ticket to our dinner on May 19,  honoring Diane Ravitch, if you want us to be able to keep advocating on the need to lower class size, protect student privacy and/or keep AI out of our schools!

 

thanks Leonie  

 

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Comments on the Capital Plan:

 

My name is Leonie Haimson, and I’m the executive director of Class Size Matters. 

I urge you to vote no on the capital plan, which according to SCA officials funds fewer than half the seats necessary to provide enough space to allow schools to comply with the class size law.  The SCA also testified to the City Council last month that the current plan is now being revised to better align with the law, and although I do not know if this is true, it does show that any vote now to approve it is premature.  

Moreover, of those new school seats that are funded, more than half have no sites, and nearly 40% are unspecified as to district or grade level.  This lack of transparency violates not just the class size law, but also Local Law 167, passed by the City Council in 2018. 

Approving such an inherently flawed capital plan also flies in the face of a resolution passed by the PEP School Utilization Committee on March 18, over a month ago, which calls on the DOE to produce a real class size reduction plan, that would describe where the 495 schools will receive additional space that DOE says are too overcrowded at their current enrollment to lower class size to mandated levels and to amend the capital plan accordingly. 

These 495 schools enroll nearly half of all non-D 75 students.  Yet the DOE has blocked this resolution from coming to a vote of the full PEP.  One has to doubt their commitment to lowering class size to the levels that all kids need and deserve, and are their right under the law. 

Thank you for your time.

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Comments on the Contracts:

 

My name is Leonie Haimson,  and I am also the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student privacy, a member of the Chancellor’s Privacy Working group, and a member of the AI Working Group.  Even though we were promised to have input on the AI guidance several times, we were denied that opportunity, and the guidance is deeply flawed.

 

I along with many other parents continue to have serious concerns about the expansion of AI in our schools.  Many AI products have been pushed on schools in the last few weeks, including Google Gemini, which prompts kids to ask for its help with writing or drawing pictures when they log into their Chromebooks.  Teachers are receiving emails from the vendors using their DOE email addresses, promoting their AI products.

 

Moreover, tonight a contract for the Age of Learning is to be voted on, described as providing a “personalized learning” journey for kids in grades PreK to 2nd grade,  to teach them math and ELA with videos, games etc..  While it claims that “this contract contains no AI products; an optional feature includes the ability to use AI to generate recommendations based on de-identified student assessments.”  I don’t know how a product can make personalized recommendations to students without the vendor knowing their identity.  And kids that young shouldn’t be on devices at all. 

 

While we rally for a moratorium on AI, DOE officials mingle in San Diego with ed tech vendors and executives

 

4/20/26 Update:  It appears that at least 18 top DOE officials attended the ASU-GSV conference co-sponsored by Google in San Diego last week, including at least ten district superintendents. 

On Thursday April 16, we rallied in City Hall Park, and called on the Mayor to place  a moratorium on the use of AI for two years.  Parents, students, teachers and advocates explained how AI poses clear risks to student privacy, their cognitive and skill development, creativity, emotional and mental health and the environment.  Here is our coalition's press release, and articles about the rally in Fortune, Daily News, and Politico.  

Serendipitously, the same day as our rally, the national group Fairplay released a letter, signed onto by more than 200 education and childhood organizations, as well as experts on mental health and medical professionals, asking for a five-year moratorium.  Josh Golin, the Fairply Executive Director, attended our rally and he is shown speaking above. 

 

After the rally, a bunch of us walked to the East entrance of City Hall, where students handed the Fairplay letter and our petition to Ailish Brady, Senior Advisor for Education, to the First Deputy Mayor. 

I also handed her a copy of the NYC Kids PAC candidate survey filled out by Zohran Mamdani when  he was running for mayor, in which he criticized "Eric Adams’ cavalier approach" to AI,  and promised to consult parents, teachers and students before implementing careful guardrails. 

Last week, at about the same time, at least seven eighteen high-ranking DOE officials were attending the ASU-GSV [Global Silicon Valley] conference in San Diego, mingling with ed tech vendors and executives, including Dr. Miatheresa Pate, the DOE chief academic officer, who led the aggressive AI expansion in NYC schools during the Adams administration and is still running it now. 

As Sue Edelman in her Substack article points out, the cost of attendee registration ranges from $2,450 to $3,850 per person -- all at a time when the Mayor has asked city agencies including DOE to make big cuts because of the city's billion dollar deficits. In addition, Dr. Pate was named a Google GSV Education Innovation Fellow, the conference itself was subsidized by Google, as was the development of the pitifully weak AI guidance put out by DOE a few weeks ago. 

Recently, the DOE placed Google Gemini, the company's AI platform on its TeachHub site, and is encouraging teachers to assign it to their students, despite the serious privacy and mental health concerns expressed by Fairplay, EPIC, and others. At the rally, I related a story a friend told me about what happened in her ten-year-old son's this week, related to the use of Google Gemini. See my comments below.

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Hi, my name is Leonie Haimson, and I’m the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.  Guess who wrote the following in response to a question asking him for his position on the use of AI in the classroom, when he was running for office last spring: 

“Eric Adams’ cavalier approach to AI in schools is in keeping with his lack of support for our schools and sensitivities to the needs of teachers, students, and parents. I support regulating Al. AI can be a useful tool if deployed effectively, but it can also harm children’s ability to think critically and to write. It should not be expanded without careful guardrails. As Mayor, I would work directly with teacher, parent, and student groups to establish those guardrails and move forward with any expansion after careful deliberation.”

Yet right now, Mayor Mamdani is continuing the course that Eric Adams begam – rushing ahead with the expansion of AI without careful guardrails or any actual consultation with teachers, parents and students. 

The only group who had input into the awful DOE AI guidance recently released was an AI advisory Council appointed by Chancellor Banks shortly before he left office whose members were primarily DOE educrats and ed tech vendors.  

I was appointed to an AI working group by Chancellor Ramos and though we were repeatedly told that we would be able to give feedback on the guidance before it was released we were never provided with that opportunity.  

In fact, the DOE completely sidelined and stonewalled us, and they refused even to give us the names of AI products currently used in schools along with their privacy policies, saying this would their violate their non-disclosure agreements with their vendors.   

Dr. Miatheresa Pate, DOE Chief Academic Officer, who is leading the push for more AI use in NYC schools is a Google fellow and this week she is speaking at an ed tech conference sponsored by Google.   

Sure enough, a few weeks ago the DOE put Google’s AI  product called Gemini on TeachHub and started encouraging teachers to use it, without any consultation with parents or privacy experts.  

Yesterday a friend of mine told me that her son, a fifth grader in a NYC public school, was assigned to  read a poem together with his classmates.  They were then asked to draw a picture about the poem.  But  teacher also told them if they didn’t want to draw a picture,  they could simply upload the poem into Google Gemini and it would create the image for them.  Is this the sort of education we want for our kids? 

Mayor Mamdani, you recently said that you don’t use AI yourself, so why are you foisting it on our kids, when research shows it will undermine not only their privacy but their creativity, cognitive skills, critical thinking and exacerbate climate change? 

We have a petition here signed by nearly 2,000 parents, educators and others, calling on you to stop before its too late, and impose a two year moratorium on the use of AI in the classroom, so that rigorous protections can be established to protect the quality of our children’s education, their safety, and their future. 

More than 200 education and childhood groups and experts including medical professionals signed onto the Fairplay letter, calling for a 5 year moratorium.  We hope that the Mayor will listen to our voices, stop catering to Google and other ed tech companies, and forge a new and more positive direction for our public schools.