NEW video about how NYC Dept of Health is enabling Talkspace to share teen personal data with social media platforms, undermining their mental health

 

Please watch the brief video above about how the online mental health company Talkspace, which has a $26M contract with the NYC Department of Health, continues to share NYC teen data with ad trackers and social media companies -- the very same companies NYC is suing for undermining their mental health. 

This is despite our repeated letters to the Department of Health, raising our privacy concerns starting last September. Also, check out this recent piece in Gizmodo, that reports that now Seattle and Baltimore schools also have similar contracts with Talkspace to provide free mental health to teens, with likely similar data privacy violations. 

Moreover, as the Gizmodo article revealed, Talkspace is now developing a “Personalized Podcast” created through AI, that harvests patients' personal mental health info from their therapy sessions and feeds it back to them in the form of a sound file. One can only imagine the damage this could cause to vulnerable teens if someone got hold of the sound files on their phones or they themselves played them back inadvertently in public. Not even considering how the use of AI chatbots can itself be perilous, as shown by the recent lawsuit filed by parents who allege that a chatbot caused their son to commit suicide. 

One clarification: though the Gizmodo article notes that after we brought attention to this issue, ad-trackers were removed from the NYC Teenspace landing page, we found many other pages on its website are still collecting and disclosing teens' personal data,  as our video explains above, including the page featuring the new supposedly improved Teenspace Privacy Policy.  We wrote about our findings in our most recent letter sent to the NYC Department of Health more than a month ago, and yet have gotten no response.  

Parents: If your child has visited the Teenspace website or has signed up for their services, please contact us at info@studentprivacymatters.org as soon as possible.

Sign up now to hear about the threat to Student Privacy from the city's irresponsible disclosure of student data including via Teenspace

Please join us to learn about the threats to student privacy from breaches and DOE carelessly sharing personal information with ed tech, AI, charter schools, and other unscrupulous third parties, at this briefing on Wed. October  23 at 7 PM EST; you can register here. Co-sponsored with AQE, Class Size Matters and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.

One of the troubling issues we will be talking about is Teenspace.  On Sept. 10, along with NYCLU and AI for Families, NYCLU, PCSP and AI for Families wrote the Mayor, the DOE Chancellor, and the Commissioner of  Health about our deep concerns about the way in which the Privacy Policy of the online mental health company Teenspace discloses the personal information of students to unnamed third parties for marketing purposes in a manner that would be illegal if the contract was signed by the DOE rather than the Dept. of Health. 

The Teenspace parent company, Talkspace, is being paid $26 million over three years by the city to provide free counseling to students, and Mayor Adams, the Department of Health and the DOE have all been aggressively encouraging NYC students to sign up for these services, with no mention of how their personal data could be used for predatory marketing which could further undermine their mental health.   More on this here.

On Sept. 23,  Dept. of Health responded to our letter, arguing that they did not have to abide by the state student privacy law since they were not an education agency, but assuring us that their contract was no less  protective.  On Oct. 8,  we received the Talkspace contract via a Freedom of Information Law request.

The contract did not dispel our concerns.  Since we sent our initial letter, we had discovered that when a NYC student visits the Teenspace website on their phone, their personally identifiable information is shared with 15 ad trackers and 34 cookies, as well as Facebook, Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft among others, which we saw from using the Blacklight  privacy audit tool. These findings were later confirmed by a security company that does privacy analyses.  These findings are particularly concerning, given how the city is suing many of these companies for undermining children's mental health and designing their algorithms to be addictive for the purposes of targeted advertising .

Our follow-up letter to the Dept. of Health is below, copied to other city officials.  Please join us at our Privacy Forum to hear more about this issue and other ways student data is being breached and purposely disclosed in ways that undermine student privacy.

DOE gives information to the military that it denies to Parent Associations

According to today’s New York Post, the NYC Department of Education has now decided to give the military unfettered access to the contact information of all high school juniors and seniors, including their names, addresses and telephone numbers, instead of having them canvass each high school separately. Students have only until Friday to opt out of this process.

This is apparently the DOE’s response to a report released last year, from the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Manhattan Borough President’s office, detailing the abusive and disruptive presence of military recruiters in many NYC public high schools.

See also today’s press release from the NYCLU:

On Sept. 16, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein issued a policy directive to principals that streamlined the process for providing military recruiters the personal information of all 11th and 12th grade students at the city’s public high schools. The policy changes were made unilaterally and without any public input, despite the enormous implications to children’s privacy. Under the new policy, students have until Friday to submit opt-out forms to have their information withheld from military recruiters.

Yet at the same time that the DOE officials appear willing to hand over student contact information to the military, they deny this same information to any and all Parent Associations who would like to get in touch with other parents at their children’s schools, to invite them to PA meetings or fundraisers, or provide other information to encourage parent involvement in schoolwide events.

Strangely, both policies are based on the tortured interpretation of the same federal law by Michael Best, the DOE’s chief attorney --the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act or FERPA.

In general, this law provides that schools must have written permission from a parent or student in order to release any information from a student's education record. However, according to the official FERPA website of the U.S. Department of Education:

Schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name, address, telephone number, date and place of birth, honors and awards, and dates of attendance. However, schools must tell parents and eligible students about directory information and allow parents and eligible students a reasonable amount of time to request that the school not disclose directory information about them.

The DOE apparently claims this law allows them the right to hand over our kids’ contact information to the military, which would like to ship them off to Iraq.

But even as the DOE is making it easier for the military to recruit our children for war, Best has interpreted this same provision to mean that giving parents the opportunity to opt out of releasing their contact information to a Parents’ Association is not sufficient.

Instead, he has ruled that PAs must get prior written consent from their members to possess their contact information. (Kind of a Catch 22, don’t you think?) In other words, the opt-out provision that is good enough for the military is not good enough for PAs. Only an affirmative opt-in will do. This is how the DOE "encourages" parental involvement!

As a high school parent, I haven’t received any opt out forms, and yet the deadline is supposedly Friday. The NYCLU has asked the DOE to extend the deadline by a month and to begin a 30-day public comment period before implementing the Sept. 16 directive:

“The DOE is giving military recruiters a direct line to New York City’s children. This new policy gives the military access to students that colleges, trade schools and prospective employers never had…To make these changes in secret without parent or public input shows a startling disregard for open government and the privacy rights of parents and children.”

The DOE opt-out forms are available here.

For more information on how students and parents can be informed of their right to opt out of the military recruitment process, check out the Brooklyn Parents for Peace and the War Resisters League

--Ellen Bilofsky

Correction: Release of information to the military is mandated by this provision of (surprise!) No Child Left Behind, not FERPA. This doesn't change the fact that the DOE is making it easier for the military to obtain our children's contact information, and harder for the PAs to get in touch with their parents

NYPD illegally arresting children in school

More than 300 New York City public school students were illegally arrested on school grounds between 2005 and 2007, according to NYPD data the New York Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union obtained in a Freedom of Information Law request.

New York State law prohibits children 15 and younger from being arrested for minor, non-criminal violations like loitering. A child who commits a minor infraction at school may be disciplined, but the Family Court Act prohibits police from arresting the child.

The NYCLU and ACLU have sent Police Commissioner Ray Kelly a letter urging him to immediately end the practice of illegally arresting schoolchildren.

As appalling as these illegal arrests are, a look at school discipline practices in New York City public schools makes it clear how they were allowed to occur. Since 1998, mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg have assigned more than 5,000 school safety agents and at least 200 armed police officers to the city’s schools, making the NYPD’s school safety division larger than all but four of the nation’s police forces – larger than Washington DC, Detroit, Boston or Las Vegas.

The aggressive policing of New York City’s schools reflects a national trend that pushes students – overwhelmingly youth of color and students with special needs – from the education system into the criminal justice system. Arresting, handcuffing and hauling children out of their classes for minor infractions at school - in front of their teachers and peers - only stigmatizes and humiliates them.

Read about this story in The New York Times and the Daily News. Then read about the Student Safety Act – a commonsense first step to end the use of these overly aggressive police tactics in our schools. The act – Intro. 816 – is currently before the New York City Council.

-Jennifer Carnig, New York Civil Liberties Union

Children handcuffed in school; what is going on?

Two recent incidents provide yet more evidence that the situation with cops in the schools has gotten completely out of control.

Twelve days ago a ten year old girl was handcuffed on a school bus, and on Friday, a five year old boy was handcuffed at his elementary school and taken to a psychiatric hospital -- even after his babysitter came to pick him up. Both these children had serious disabilities which required more sensitive interventions.

According to the Daily News, the Kindergarten student, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, speech problems and asthma, has had nightmares ever since and will start seeing a psychologist soon.

The NYCLU and other advocacy groups have documented in detail repeated abuses of the police and safety agents in our schools-- whose number has grown until they now constitute the tenth largest police force in the country. Several times, even principals have been arrested for coming to the aid of students after they had been manhandled by safety agents.

In 2005, the DOE suspended more students than the entire student population of New Haven.

New legislation has been proposed, called the Student Safety Act, which would provide more transparency and oversight as regards disciplinary and security policies in our public schools. For more on this important issue, see the NYCLU website here.

Who controls our schools:principals or the police?

We asked Sally Lee of Teachers Unite to contribute this entry to our blog:

The arrest of the student and principal at East Side Community High School set the stage for yesterday’s City Council hearings on school safety and NYCLU news conference. The focus of the hearings was the complete confusion over who has authority in public schools—principals or school security agents.

When Kathleen Grimm, the DOE Deputy Chancellor, claimed that principals have the power to remove metal detectors from their schools, there was audible surprise. Even the President of the Principals’ Union, Ernie Logan, stated that he had never heard that before.

In the afternoon, the union representing the security agents held their own press conference an hour before the NYCLU’s conference yesterday, and pushed the idea that these agents are victimized and assaulted by students.

The press coverage focused on the DOE and NYPD claim that once a student performs a criminal act, it is under the jurisdiction of the police. This begs the question: How often are school security agents escalating non-criminal incidents into violent conflicts?

Again, the enlightening news came from inside the hearings, where students gave a clear picture of regular harassment. One boy talked about a school security agent forcing him to stop eating lunch so that he could take him directly to the dean’s office, while cursing at him, all because of a completely false accusation—which made him miss half of his next class. One girl spoke of being forced to skip a class while sitting in a “holding room” which is where students are made to stay when even one minute late.

The NYCLU reports that the NYPD has assigned more than 5,000 school safety agents and at least 200 armed police officers to the city’s public schools. This massive presence would make the NYPD’s school safety division the fifth largest police force in the country—larger than Washington DC, Detroit, Boston or Las Vegas. And yet, there is no effective mechanism to hold school safety agents accountable for misconduct.

At yesterday’s news conference, youth from the Urban Youth Collaborative; Lepore Felice, the principal of Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports; Jamaal Bowman, the dean of a small school inside Martin Luther King Jr. High School; and I discussed the importance of investing in proactive solutions to keep our schools safe including: small class sizes; rich after-school programs; peer mediation initiatives and increased support services.

Critics will say that cops are needed in schools to keep students in line in these violent times. Bowman, quoted on WNYC this morning, highlighted the fact that police are heavily stationed in schools with almost 100% Black and Latino students. Race and income is the main factor contributing to the hostile use of policing in our schools, but the NYPD and Department of Education will never own up to that scandal.

Teachers Unite for Student Safety is an initiative of Teachers Unite advocating for supportive services in schools rather than the use of aggressive policing strategies. For more on the hearings, see the NY Times blog.

UPDATE: See the excellent article in City Limits. Excerpt:

“A primary finding of the hearing was that the 1998 MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] that assigned responsibility for school safety to the NYPD expired in 2002 and has not been renewed. Furthermore, a joint committee called for by the MOU to "ensure the effectiveness of school safety" and prepare annual evaluations of the school safety program was never convened. The only outside oversight of the school security program, according to DOE and NYPD, is conducted by Mayor Bloomberg."

September PEP Meeting: Mayoral Appointees Reject Resolution on Military Recruiting

The Panel for Educational Policy meets monthly to review DOE policies and approve budgets. As the appointee of Borough President Scott Stringer, I represent Manhattan on the Panel.

At Monday's Panel for Educational Policy, I brought to the panel a resolution recommending measures to improve the oversight of military recruiting in schools. The resolution would also ensure that families could exercise their right to keep their personal information from being turned over to the military. We lost in a 6 - 3 vote with Chancellor Klein, the mayoral appointees and the appointee of the Staten Island Borough President voting against. The Queens and Bronx members joined me in supporting the resolution.

The impetus for the resolution was a report and student survey released by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Students or Soldiers Coalition.

The main findings of the survey were:

1) One in five students reported that class time was being used by military recruiters.
2) 40% of students did not receive forms allowing them to opt-out of providing personal information to military recruiters.
3) One in five students did not believe anyone in their schools could advise them on risks and benefits of military enlistment
4) Half of the survey respondents did not know to whom they should report military recruiter misconduct

In light of these findings, we prepared a resolution with a series of recommendations for the Department of Education. We suggested a chancellors regulation be implemented to clarify the policy and require appropriate enforcement measures:

1) Use of classroom time should be prohibited and limits be placed on frequency and location of recruiter visits.
2) Opt-out forms should be distributed in multiple languages to all high school students. Other easy methods should as a website or check boxes on school forms should be employed.
3) Records of military recruiter visits should be kept and published.
4) School staff should be trained in the policies and a procedure established to report recruiter misconduct and all compliance with all policies should be monitored by the DOE.
5) In each school, appropriate staff members should be trained to advise students on military enlistment.

While Chancellor Klein agreed that many of the measures made sense, he was not willing to adopt the resolution, citing the burden the measures would place on the schools. I suggested that the DOE might manage aspects of the policy centrally, for example using the new ARIS database to send the opt-out mailings, thereby actually removing an administrative burden from principals. I also pointed out how expense and administrative effort seem to be of no concern when it comes to enforcing the mayor's ban on cell phones. In any event, we will continue to press the DOE to fulfill its obligations to our children.

Bob Herbert: "Cruel madness" in our schools

Bob Herbert has a column in today’s New York Times about the overwhelming and often abusive presence of police in the NYC public schools – based on the devastating NYCLU/ACLU report called "Criminalizing the Classroom" that we excerpted on our blog here.

I have posted Bob's column here, for those who do not subscribe to the NY Times. It ends this way:

“There is no excuse whatever for this systematic mistreatment of New York City students. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in charge of the school system, and he and Commissioner Ray Kelly run the Police Department. Parents across the city should demand that they step in and bring this cruel madness to an end.”

Unfortunately, when this report came out back in March, not a single major NYC newspaper covered it. Bob used to write regularly about our public schools – including several columns on the problem of class size in NYC schools-- which continues unabated. Let’s hope he’s back on the beat.

If you'd like to send a message to the Mayor and/or Chancellor, the NYCLU has a sample letter here.

Students Attempt to Defy Random Scanning

Many parents who oppose Mayor Bloomberg's cell phone ban probably wonder what would happen if their kids tried to defy the NYPD's random scanning patrols. Karim Lopez is an after-school coordinator at a South Bronx high school. Here is an account of events at his school last week, including his attempt to bring in observers from the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

And from the NYCLU press release issued today:

Students from a South Bronx high school who refused to walk through metal detectors to enter their school building were intimidated and threatened into complying with the scanning procedures last Wednesday, March 21^st.

When one student refused scanning he was taken to the side, surrounded by up to five NYPD School Safety Agents (SSAs), and threatened with not being able to join his classmates. Faced with this intimidation, the student finally went along with the procedures. Another pair of teenaged boys who refused scanning was brought into a side room and questioned, at times without any adult present, about who had put them up to it. They were threatened with a week’s suspension if they did not agree to the search. For fear of jeopardizing their college careers, the students finally gave in. They were allowed to go to their classes two hours after arriving at the school.

There will be press conference Thursday at 4:30 in front of Tweed Courthouse (DoE). Participating with the NYCLU will be Social Action Youth, Uptown Youth for Peace and Justice, Sistas and Brothas United, Friends of Brook Park, For A Better Bronx and Sistas on the Rise.

Criminalizing the Classroom -- and NYC students

The New York Civil Liberties Union has released a scathing critique of school policing practices, based on over 1,000 interviews and surveys, describing how NYC students have become criminalized as a consequence of overly aggressive policing operations, which in many instances, have led to less safety in schools rather than more.

The documented behavior of the police and School Safety Agents includes derogatory, abusive comments and conduct; intrusive searches; inappropriate sexual attention; physical abuse; and arrests of students for minor violations, or for nothing at all.

Countless armed NYPD officers along with thousands of SSAs patrol our schools every day -- the total number of whom constitute the tenth largest police force in the country -- more than Washington DC, Detroit, Baltimore and many other large cities. San Antonio has only half as many police per resident as NYC schools have per student.

Almost 100,000 students everyday are forced to endure scanners, bag-searches, and pat downs, with no probable cause -- and by personnel who are often abusive and arbitrarily confiscate their possessions, and never return them.

NYC is alone among the largest districts in the country in the manner in which police and agents are assigned to schools who are neither selected, trained or under the authority of the educators in the building, and as a result, our students are suffering.

Here is one story:

Statement of Biko Edwards, Samuel J. Tilden High School

In January of this year I was late to Chemistry Lab because I had been talking with my math teacher after math class. As I was rushing to class, Val Lewis, the Assistant Principal for Security, stopped me in the hallway. Because I was worried that I would be late to Chemistry Lab, which has strict attendance requirements, I asked Officer Lewis let me keep going to class, and I told him that I had been talking with my math teacher. Officer Lewis didn't listen to my explanation and instead told me to go to the "focus room," where we have detention.

I kept begging to go to Chemistry Lab, and Officer Lewis got angry and threatened to send me to the principal's office. Then he ordered a police officer stationed at the school, Officer Rivera, to arrest me. Officer Rivera grabbed me and slammed me against a brick door divider, which cut my face. I was bleeding. Officer Rivera then sprayed Mace in my eyes and face, then called for back-up on his radio and handcuffed me.

Eventually they took me to the hospital, where I spent about two hours handcuffed to a chair and received some treatment for my injuries. Then they took me to the local precinct and to central booking. I missed the rest of my classes that day. Overall I spent more than 28 hours in police custody. I was also suspended for four days.

If it can happen like this in school, imagine what police officers could do to you outside if something like this happened…. Why are they arresting school kids while they're in school? Tensions between students, teachers, principals, and school safety agents wouldn't be as bad if SSAs would do more listening to students and less pushing them around.

Biko Edwards is from Crown Heights and is a seventeen-year-old eleventh-grader at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn.

An update: in a similar vein, see the new report from NESRI, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, "Deprived of Dignity: The Degrading Treatment and Abusive discipline in New York City And Los Angeles Public Schools."