Universities should ‘stop outsiders’ from accessing data, ASU professor says after Harris campaign sends text messages to students

ASU professor calls for student data protection after Harris Campaign sends text messages to 150,000 Arizona students, FERPA expert weighs in

An Arizona State University professor is calling for stronger protections for student data after Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign sent text messages to 150,000 students across the state.

“Student data is easily accessible through an algorithm, as appears to be the case with the Harris campaign,” said history professor Donald Critchlow. The college solution in an email statement.

Schools should “find ways to prevent outsiders, especially political campaigns, from accessing and aggregating this data,” the professor said.

Additionally, federal student data privacy laws “are not strong enough” and “the Arizona Legislature needs to enact a strong state FERPA,” he said.

He also said The Fix that “Arizona public universities should emphasize that students can choose not to share data when registering. Many students are not aware that this is an option when entering their data.

ASU has already said The Fix that “FERPA exempts “directory information,” which includes contact information, from confidentiality.

FERPA expert Leroy Rooker confirmed this in a telephone interview with The Fix that sharing student contact information with political campaigns may be legal under federal law.

The law “would allow it, but only if the phone numbers have been designated as a directory item” by the school, he said.

Phone numbers are listed under directory information on the ASU website.

However, whether providing students’ contact information during political campaigns is permitted under state law “is a different question,” Rooker said.

MORE: Election Society Remains Silent on Whether Students’ Private FERPA Data Will Be Deleted

In a letter to school officials, ASU College Republicans say Arizona state law prohibits the sharing of contact information with political campaigns.

The group points to Arizona State Bill 15-1633, which says university resources cannot be used “for the purpose of influencing election results or advocating for or against legislation in progress or proposed”.

“Team Harris-Walz’s involvement in this text campaign appears to conflict with this state law,” College Republicans wrote.

In response to the letter, ASU released a statement saying the school “has not received a request for contact information from its students in connection with the campaign in question.”

“Under the Arizona Public Records Act, ASU records are public unless there is a specific confidentiality requirement,” the school said.

However, ASU did not address the group’s concerns regarding State Bill 15-1633.

Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman agrees with College Republicans that it is illegal “for political campaigns to access the personally identifiable information (PII) of students at Arizona public universities.” The Fix previously reported.

Hoffman announced he would immediately launch a “full Senate investigation” into the “major security breach” in an article on X.

The college solution contacted Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Senator Jake Hoffman, Senate candidate Kari Lake, Turning Point USA, the Kamala Harris campaign, the Goldwater Institute, the Future of Privacy Forum and the privacy law expert Paul Schwartz. by email and phone call. None responded to requests for comment.

Daniel Scarpinato, former chief of staff to Gov. Doug Ducey, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation declined to comment.

Owen Anderson, professor of philosophy and religious studies at ASU, previously said The Fix that the issue is both “a matter of confidentiality and a matter of bias,” because the texts “could be seen by students as an endorsement.”

Adding to the concern raised by Professor Anderson, it appears that the issue of campaign texts extends beyond Arizona.

ASU College Republicans reported that “more than 100,000 Georgia STUDENTS and some PARENTS at SEVERAL Georgia colleges received a text from Kamala Harris’ campaign telling students to vote for her,” in an article on x.

MORE: Private Student FERPA Data Transmitted to Third-Party Voting Company

IMAGE: College Republicans at ASU/Instagram

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