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What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

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Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#41
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103338#signup_fe... the verification mechanism is to use a credit card, which is one of the methods listed as "reasonably calculated" under point H.4 of this FAQ https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...

It’s clever of Google to tie verification to the parents credit card...of course in practice, in no way does that serve as actual verification a minor has consent of the parent to sign up for the Google service (I think we saw this is in enough cases with minors making in app purchases with parents credit card thru the App Store) but surely it places the parent in an unenviable position to make a claim Google unlawfu…

Okay, I'll go to work and suggest we delete all user accounts since it's impossible to verify that the users are above the age of 13.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#42
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s clever of Google to tie verification to the parents credit card...of course in practice, in no way does that serve as actual verification a minor has consent of the parent to sign up for the Google service (I think we saw this is in enough cases with minors making in app purchases with parents credit card thru the App Store) but surely it places the parent in an unenviable position to make a claim Google unlawfu…

Okay, I'll go to work and suggest we delete all user accounts since it's impossible to verify that the users are above the age of 13.

Snark aside, it is difficult to comply with the law and Google (amount others) is exposing themselves to potential liability by engaging in the collection of user data for users under the age of 13. Google is in a particularly difficult position because facts/evidence would show they knew or should know users are under 13 in many (not all instances) even when the users lie.

But you are wrong it’s not impossible to verify users age, and Google doesn’t have to delete user accounts...they can simply stop collecting user data of minors 13 and younger ;)

Edit: another loosely related example (dealing with age verification) is Girls Gone Wild where they paid underage girls to reveal themselves on camera, those minors signed the GGW contracts and provided fake IDs...yet GGW was liable.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#43
post #5

I don't understand. What they are describing sounds like Chrome syncing. But you can certainly install Google Drive's sync client without using Chrome/Chrome syncing. Is this a new thing?

They must have signed into Chrome, but Chrome will explicitly tell the user if their data will be accessible to the GSuite administrator[0] so this is likely on them for not fully reading this popup or forgetting about it. 0: https://judge.sh/YILh0ozLX5.png

Yes, that is the pop-up and upon reading it, it is pretty clear to me that you want to start a new chrome profile to proceed (or else your home passwords will get sync'd to the controlled account). The trouble is that this is not clear to people who have never signed-in to Chrome.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#44
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must have signed into Chrome, but Chrome will explicitly tell the user if their data will be accessible to the GSuite administrator[0] so this is likely on them for not fully reading this popup or forgetting about it. 0: https://judge.sh/YILh0ozLX5.png

Being accessible to the G Suite administrator is understandable, but this is saying that anyone with an account on the school's G Suite plan could see the passwords for any other user. This has to be something where the admins changed some default setting to change the default security on everything in G Suite, so that all other school accounts could have access to it. Maybe someone intended to set it up so that all…

From my reading of it, they are saying that all passwords saved in the browser (potentially all users of the home PC or mobile phone) get associated with the google account but not that all users of the school system can see each others passwords.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#45
post #36
post #27

This sounds like someone who doesn’t have an understanding of how the services they’re using are designed to interact with each other. This is a problem, but it’s not specific to Google: it’s difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that your average user actually understands how these services are meant to work. As the user starts to realize how integrated these services really are, it causes a level of confusion and…

Parents complain about auto-sync of passwords, and browser history, past searches and things like that. They would like more control of what's stored/synced by default. It's not as benign as you describe it, especially when it comes to children.

It doesn't auto-sync without your permission; you have to request that the browser save your password. If you want to save passwords locally without syncing, it's trivial to disable. You can additionally encrypt the passwords with a master password so that Google doesn't have access to them.

Auto-syncing of passwords is a core feature of every modern browser. Safari does it, Firefox does it, Vivaldi does it, Edge does it, Opera does it, and, of course, Chrome does it.

Want control over your child's account? Google has something for that: https://families.google.com/familylink/

Want the school to manage it for you? That's exactly what G Suite is.

Edit: The problem here is ignorance. It's easy to demonstrate that it's possible to control all the data about which this parent is concerned. Sure, there's data they can't easily control, but they make no mention of that. Your interests, demographics, everything else Google infers about you... you can't fully control that, and that's what parents should be worried about--not password syncing.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I'll go to work and suggest we delete all user accounts since it's impossible to verify that the users are above the age of 13.

Snark aside, it is difficult to comply with the law and Google (amount others) is exposing themselves to potential liability by engaging in the collection of user data for users under the age of 13. Google is in a particularly difficult position because facts/evidence would show they knew or should know users are under 13 in many (not all instances) even when the users lie. But you are wrong it’s not impossible to ve…

Hard to have no snark. You've provided zero useful input on how to deal with this, and expensive lawyers with more school than you disagree that what is done now is not sufficient.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#48
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snark aside, it is difficult to comply with the law and Google (amount others) is exposing themselves to potential liability by engaging in the collection of user data for users under the age of 13. Google is in a particularly difficult position because facts/evidence would show they knew or should know users are under 13 in many (not all instances) even when the users lie. But you are wrong it’s not impossible to ve…

Hard to have no snark. You've provided zero useful input on how to deal with this, and expensive lawyers with more school than you disagree that what is done now is not sufficient.

What helpful input have you added? Why do you think other lawyers have “more school” than me?

As you acknowledge Google is paying some expensive in-house and outside counsel, I disagree with you that they wouldn’t agree with me. I’m sure in an attempt to minimize legal risks and potential liability they would have offered the exact solutions I have, but executives (as they often do) ignore counsel, thinking they know better, and expose themselves to the legal risks in order to collect data on children 13 and under to monetize them.

Anyway if you can show me your input, or support any of your claims (show me a lawyer with “more school” than me, or a lawyer who disagrees) that would be at least something more than trolling.

Re: What’s stored in a school Google Drive account?

#49

> “My voice to text was being stored as well as any search my kids did, and I could say ‘sure my daughter was searching on Google,’ but my phone uses Safari. When I used my texting app on my iPhone, it recorded my voice, as well as typing out the words and saving it on my Google Drive,” said Brette Hay, the Ely’s daughter and a teacher at Pershing Middle School. If it's possible to get voice recordings out of the iMe…

They're probably using the Google Keyboard and it's voice typing feature.

If you enable it, it can keep a history of what you have said tied to your account.

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