Google Admits to Data-Mining Students’ Email Messages, Revises Policy

“Data-mining,” the practice of scanning the contents of online postings and correspondence for commercial purposes, has increasingly come under fire from student privacy watchdog groups.  In March, Google admitted to data-mining millions of email messages sent and received by students who use Google’s Apps for Education tool suite for schools.  This admission comes in the wake of a federal lawsuit against Google that alleges that its data-mining of its Gmail service violates federal and state wiretap and privacy laws.

Google admitted to Education Week in March that it “scans and indexes” the emails of all Apps for Education users for many reasons, including advertising, even if users choose not to receive ads.  Google declined to say whether these scans are used to build profiles of student users.  Privacy advocates worry that Google could use email data to create a digital-user profile that might follow a student indefinitely, such as if a teacher using Apps for Education emails parents about their child’s disability status or mental health.

Google revised this practice in May by removing the user option to receive advertisements in Apps for Education and ending the email scanning practice for advertising purposes.  However, privacy advocates have lingering concerns about Google’s:

• ability to change this new policy at any time;
• limiting the scanning disclaimer to advertising purposes only, which still permits it to sell scanned student information to textbook publishers or test-preparation services; and
• intentions for student data use once schools decide to leave Apps for Education, specifically whether the data would be deleted or remain in Google’s storage cloud.