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Important Artificial Intelligence (AI) FERPA/COPPA/Privacy Considerations

Facts you should be aware of

  • AI products can be incredible tools when individuals understand the privacy risks and considerations

  • Most (all?) Free AI tools (exceptions: Google Gemini for Education and other FERPA compliant AI tools) take any information and questions you feed into it and add that data to their public AI database to allow it to improve its future responses

    • It's possible that the data you feed in could come back out to another individual in part or in whole (although rare)

    • Your data goes into a database (public in many cases) owned by the AI company

    • Is your data being sold?

    • What happens with the data if the company goes out of business or gets hacked?

    • Use AI products safely (see bullets below)

Utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Products in a safe FERPA/COPPA Compliant Manner

  • Always assess if the product is FERPA/COPPA Compliant especially if educators plan on utilizing an AI tool with students. Most also limit their use to 18 and over (some 13 and over) in their terms of service due to privacy and regulatory facts

  • Always sanitize data (remove any Personally Identifiable Information/PII and FERPA information, banking/financial information etc.) before submission to any AI products

  • Never submit student pictures to AI products that have not been approved by parents

  • Never link your district Google (or any accounts) to AI products without fully understanding what you are sharing from your account (for instance the free/personal/NON Educational version of Google Gemini can suck in your emails and google docs into its public learning model and also has human reviewers that can review your submitted questions and data for enhancing their AI model. Other products can have similar privacy considerations)

  • FERPA: https://www2.ed.gov/ferpa

  • COPPA (limits data collection for kids under 13 and other restrictions): https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa

  • If you have questions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to REMC1 - support@remc1.net

Google Gemini Facts and Considerations

Google Gemini Quick Facts

FERPA Compliant for Students 18+ and staff (for Google Education Workspaces)

  • Free Gemini Chat experience OR paid licenses

FERPA COPPA Compliant for 13+ coming soon Fall 2024

  • Again: Free Gemini Chat experience OR paid licenses

Districts CAN enable Gemini Free Chat experience today for 18+

Google Gemini Version differences as of September 2024 (moving target)

  • REMC1 can assist with obtaining quotes for the NOT-FREE options from the REMCSave Vendor for Google. Just send an email to support@remc1.net

  • Gemini (chat experience - free): There is no limit on how many prompts you input into the tool. This is the chat experience, meaning users are able to insert questions or prompts; e.g. "create a lesson plan for my 3rd grade history class on US presidents" -- it will then create an outline of what you've asked it to do. The main difference with the chat experience vs. the paid licenses is that this does NOT integrate with Workspace. The other licenses have Gemini built into Docs, Sheets, Meets, Slides, Gmail and Drive. So it's capable of performing more actions within the suite of Google tools. Data protection for 18+ as of Sept 2024 (with plans for 13+ fall of 2024)

  • Gemini Education: (Around 12/mo per license): Paid license for 18+ users. Limits on # of uses per month (hundreds of uses/month limit). Integrates with Workspace products. Offers 'Gems' (custom AI expert for any topic). Data protection.

  • Gemini Education Premium: (around 20/month per license): Paid licenses for 18+ users. No limits on usage. Integrates with Workspace products, also has Gems and data protection. Advanced Meet capabilities are also available where you can have Gemini take notes for you in a meeting, or attend a meeting on your behalf if you're not able to attend. (Gemini Meets is kind of beta at the moment but improving quickly).

Detailed Gemini Information

WARNING: As of September 2024 Free Google Gemini for Educational Workspaces is only FERPA compliant for Staff or Students over 18.

  • Google says to NOT enable for students under 18. Google terms of service will not (never) support use of Gemini/AI for students UNDER 13 (COPPA)

September 2024 Update on Gemini and FERPA considerations - Facts developing over time

  • This information is from a Google Workspace for Ed. K12 Field Customer Lead and Google engineers

  • Long story short Google Gemini Free Chat experience has data protections/FERPA compliance as of Sept 1 for 18+ students and staff. 13+ (with parental consent) is COMMING SOON FALL 2024

  • As of September 2024 Quote: “Good news, these additional data protections for gemini.google.com free of charge service launched on August 30th! Here is a blogpost about it. Like Sam mentioned, this means any use of the gemini chat experience within an education account will 1) not be used to train our models 2) not be reviewed by anyone at Google, and 3) not be shared with any other user or institution. That usage is safe and secure to the education user. Currently, these apply for 18+ users. The terms and conditions are still considered an 'additional service' within the admin console, however have those additional data protections in place

  • 13+: Free Google Gemini Chat experience is available currently as of Sept 2024 but there is NO official statement on FERPA for that category. 13+ for Google Gemini is also only available with parental consent (Google Terms of Service)

  • 13+: Free Google Gemini Chat experience will SOON have an announcement this fall on how it WILL be FERPA compliant with data privacy. Google representatives say WAIT until the announcement for enablement if districts plan to do so

  • With that said, I will include an explanation between the Free student chat experience, the Paid staff tier one 18+ student and staff experience, and the Paid PREMIUM 18+ staff and student experience

WARNING: Regarding the NON-Educational FREE version of Google Gemini

  • This is for the personal free Gemini version or the NON-Ed Workspace free Gemini only

  • The free version sifts through all your email and documents sucking the data into its public database

  • Create a burner personal account if you want to use Google Gemini. Don't use it with your normal Google Email either unless you want it to suck all your emails and drive documents into the public database (including banking, HIPAA, FERPA, PII info etc.) everything then have it cranked out to other public who ask gemini questions. There are people/bad actors who craft questions to try and reveal/pull this info back out etc.; it's an identity theft attack vector

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