ASU professor calls for student data protections after Harris Campaign texts 150,000 Arizona students, FERPA expert weighs in
An Arizona State University professor is calling for stronger student data protections after the Kamala Harris presidential campaign texted 150,000 students across the state.
“Student data can be easily accessed through an algorithm, as it appears it was by the Harris campaign,” history Professor Donald Critchlow told The College Fix in an email statement.
Schools should “find ways to prevent outsiders, especially political campaigns, from accessing and aggregating this data,” the professor stated.
Further, federal legislation around student data privacy “is not strong enough,” and “the AZ legislature needs to enact a strong state FERPA,” he stated.
He also told The Fix that “Arizona public universities need to emphasize that students can opt out of sharing data when enrolling. Many students don’t know this is an option when entering their data.”
ASU previously told The Fix that “FERPA exempts from confidentiality ‘directory information,’ which includes contact information.”
FERPA expert Leroy Rooker confirmed in a phone interview with The Fix that sharing student contact information with political campaigns can be legal under federal law.
The law “would permit it, but only if phone numbers have been designated as a directory item” by the school, he said.
Phone numbers are listed under directory information on ASU’s website.
However, whether providing student contact information to political campaigns is permissible under state law “is a different question,” Rooker said.
MORE: Voter company stays silent on whether it deletes private student FERPA data
In a letter to school officials, College Republicans at ASU argue that Arizona state law prohibits the sharing of contact information with political campaigns.
The group points to Arizona State Bill 15-1633, which states that university resources cannot be used “for the purpose of influencing the outcomes of elections or to advocate support for or opposition to pending or proposed legislation.”
“The involvement of the Harris-Walz team in this text campaign seems to conflict with this state law,” College Republicans wrote.
In response to the letter, ASU issued a statement saying the school “did not receive a request for its students’ contact information from the campaign at issue.”
“Under Arizona Public Records Law, ASU’s records are public unless there is a specific confidentiality requirement,” the school stated.
However, ASU did not address the group’s concern about State Bill 15-1633.
Republican state Sen. Jake Hoffman agrees with College Republicans that it is illegal “for political campaigns to access personally identifiable information (PII) of public university students within AZ,” The Fix previously reported.
Hoffman announced he will immediately launch a “full Senate investigation” into the “major security breach,” in a post on X.
The College Fix reached out to Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Sen. Jake Hoffman, Senatorial candidate Kari Lake, Turning Point USA, the Kamala Harris campaign, the Goldwater Institute, the Future of Privacy Forum, and privacy law expert Paul Schwartz via email and phone call. None responded to requests for comment.
Daniel Scarpinato, former chief of staff to Governor Doug Ducey, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation declined to comment.
Owen Anderson, a philosophy and religious studies professor at ASU, previously told The Fix that the issue is both “a privacy matter and a bias matter,” as the texts “could be taken by students as an endorsement.”
Adding to the concern raised by Professor Anderson, it appears the issue of campaign texts extends beyond Arizona.
College Republicans at ASU reported that “100,000+ Georgia STUDENTS and some PARENTS from MULTIPLE Georgia Colleges have received a text from Kamala Harris’ campaign telling the students to vote for her,” in a post on X.
MORE: Students’ private FERPA data given to third-party voting firm
IMAGE: College Republicans at ASU/Instagram
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