Over the past six years, a little-known private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, has built an educational software empire that wields unseen influence over the educational journeys of tens of millions of children. Along the way, The Markup found, the companies the firm controls have scooped up a massive amount of very personal data on kids, which they use to fuel a suite of predictive analytics products that push the boundaries of technology’s role in education and, in some cases, raise discrimination concerns.
This is an example of why parents need to be concerned about their kids use or smart devices, IoT, video games, educational software, and school websites in general. The growing interest in Proxy and URL Filtering technology is being driven by the risks created in child online profiling.
Link: An equity firm is amassing companies that collect data on America’s kids
via thenextweb.com
