The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#71

Post by organsnyder » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #21

paxys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big government already has a hundred ways of getting your SAT score, for example from the admissions department of any public university in the country. It's everyone else you should be worried about. A potential employer, landlord or bank pulling your teenage SAT score without your consent and judging you based on it is a scary but very real prospect.

Yes Big Gov does. And all those ways are 100% legal because it can buy the data on the legal market. There's a legal market for your personal info because...first and foremost it makes Big Gov's job 1000x easier *and* 100% legal. The point is simple. Big Gov has no interest in plugging this hole (i.e., protecting your privacy and personal info) because Big Gov is the Number 1 beneficiary of that hole. The worry of ev…

What do you define "Big Gov" as for this discussion? Just federal, or also state, city, county...? (I'm assuming we're talking about the US, since the context of this discussion is the College Board)

What activities is government monitoring using commercially-available data?

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#72

Post by jefftk » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:04 PM UTC

oneepic wrote: post #18

Maybe they could send my test scores to college applications without charging a fee, using a tracking pixel? :) I seem to remember having to pick and choose where my scores went, maybe with a fee.

FB is getting scores that the user enters, and CB is just passing them along without verifying them.

You pay CB when you want them to give your scores to others and attest for their accuracy.

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#73

Post by sam1r » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

dnissley wrote: post #5

Click bait headline: "If a student uses the college search tool on CB.org, the student can add a GPA and SAT score range to the search filters. Those values are passed in the pixel".

This makes much more sense.

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#74

Post by api » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

Atreiden wrote: post #7

> “We do not share SAT scores or GPAs with Facebook or TikTok, and any other third parties using pixel or cookies,” said a College Board spokesperson. “In fact, we do not send any personally identifiable information (PII) through our pixels on the site. In addition, we do not use SAT scores or GPAs for any targeting.” > After receiving this comment, Gizmodo shared a screenshot of the College Board sending GPAs and SA…

A lot of organizations just slather up their sites with all kinds of trackers and have absolutely no idea what they are sharing and with whom.

It's an absolute dumpster fire that can only be fixed with legislation as the web is just not designed to prevent tracking in any way. There is far too much security "surface area" for a workable technical solution without re-engineering the entire ecosystem.

That legislation is of course unlikely because political parties, think tanks, governments, and propagandists all want to gather as much information as possible for their own purposes.

Literally every single financial, political, and social incentive points toward maximization of surveillance everywhere. I feel like it's pretty hopeless without something very bad happening and causing a huge grassroots movement that can't easily be ignored.

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#75

Post by rgrieselhuber » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

Atreiden wrote: post #7

> “We do not share SAT scores or GPAs with Facebook or TikTok, and any other third parties using pixel or cookies,” said a College Board spokesperson. “In fact, we do not send any personally identifiable information (PII) through our pixels on the site. In addition, we do not use SAT scores or GPAs for any targeting.” > After receiving this comment, Gizmodo shared a screenshot of the College Board sending GPAs and SA…

This is also sharing PII of minors, no?

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#76

Post by lolinder » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

junofan wrote: post #69

lolinder wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is overly harsh. The spokesperson assumed they were being accused of abusing their position of running the SAT by actually sending real SAT scores directly to Facebook, so they responded accordingly. Instead they were abusing their position of trust to get students to enter the scores again themselves and sending that . Still not great, but not a lie on the spokesperson's part, just a misunderstanding of what wa…

They lied.

No, they didn't, they responded to the question they thought they were being asked. The form fields on their college search page weren't even in their working memory at the time.

This is a case of the College Board negligently failing to recognize these fields as sensitive data, not a case of them outright lying. Still bad, obviously, but stupid rather than nefarious.

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#77

Post by itronitron » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

Why does The College Board have Facebook and TikTok pixels on it's website?

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#78

Post by hiatus » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #76

junofan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lied.

No, they didn't, they responded to the question they thought they were being asked. The form fields on their college search page weren't even in their working memory at the time. This is a case of the College Board negligently failing to recognize these fields as sensitive data, not a case of them outright lying. Still bad, obviously, but stupid rather than nefarious.

So if they are this stupid, why are they trusted to administer these tests?

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#79

Post by singleshot_ » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:16 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #67

firtoz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dystopian is not always imaginative, however most of the time people assume it is. It's just a negative adjective.

dystopia /dɪsˈtəʊpɪə/ noun an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

Guess that must be an old definition from back before we lived in one?

Re: The College Board website shares GPAs, SAT scores with TikTok and Facebook

#80

Post by hiatus » Fri, Aug 25, 2023, 2:17 PM UTC

airza wrote: post #67

firtoz wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dystopian is not always imaginative, however most of the time people assume it is. It's just a negative adjective.

dystopia /dɪsˈtəʊpɪə/ noun an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.

Imaginative != imagined