This post includes articles on the Educational Broadband Service, Ireland's role in the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, and the latest in the higher education publishing landscape.
With our "Interesting Policy Reads" blog posts, the EDUCAUSE Policy Office highlights recent articles on federal policy issues and developments that are directly relevant to members or provide insights on higher education policy in general.
- FCC Key to Closing the Homework Gap, Inside Higher Ed, April 23, 2019. (The Educational Broadband Service—a 2.5 GHz-frequency spectrum—holds the potential to create high-speed wireless broadband networks in rural and underserved communities, but educators and policymakers are split on how best to deploy it.)
- One Country Blocks the World on Data Privacy, Politico, April 24, 2019. (Despite the European Union's efforts to bolster data privacy enforcement through the enactment of the GDPR, some question how effective the policy will ultimately be as the designated lead regulator has a history of catering to big tech companies.)
- Utah Bans Police from Searching Digital Data without a Warrant, Closes Fourth Amendment Loophole, Forbes, April 16, 2019. (Utah has become the first state in the nation to ban warrantless searches of electronic data, but the state will continue to permit law enforcement to obtain location-tracking information without a warrant if there exists an imminent risk of death, serious physical injury, sexual abuse, live-streamed sexual exploitation, kidnapping, or human trafficking.)
- The Publishers' Move to Capture Campus Data, Inside Higher Ed, April 29, 2019. (A recent Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition report raises concerns around major publishing companies' data collection practices.)
- Rival Publishers Join Forces, Inside Higher Ed, May 2, 2019. (Publishing giants Cengage and McGraw-Hill have announced plans to merge their operations.)
- Young People Are Overconfident with Online Security, Survey Suggests. Mashable, May 3, 2019. (A new survey suggests that 16- 24-year-olds—perhaps influenced by their role as digital natives—are naïve when it comes to data security; for example, 78 percent admit they use the same password across several online accounts.)
Kathryn Branson is an associate with Ulman Public Policy.
© 2019 Kathryn Branson. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License.