Education, Technology, and Individual

Privacy

Lawrence P. Grayson

Lawrence P. Grayson is with the National Institute of Education, Washington, DC 20208.

The right.to privacy is based on a belief in the essential dignity and worth of the individual. Modern technological de- vices, along with advances in the behav- ioral sciences, can threaten the privacy of students. Fortunately, invasions of pri- vacy in education have not been wide- spread. However, sufficient violations have been noted to warrant specific legislation and to promote a sharp in- crease In attention to procedures that will ensure protection of individual privacy Technology that can reveal innermost thoughts and motives, or can change basic values and behaviors, must be used judiciously and only by qualified professionals under strictly controlled conditions. Education involves individu- als, and educational experimentation is human experimentation. The educator must safeguard the privacy of students and their families.

'See Grayson (1976) for a discussion of the implication of widescale adoption of instruc- tional technology for maintaining diversity in education.

ECTJ VOL. 26 NO. 3 PP. 195-206 ISSN 0148-580C

Computers, video and audio cassettes, cable television, satellites, and other mod- ern communication techniques are being applied throughout the world in an effort to solve educational problems. Modern educational technology, however, involves more than the:use of hardware to display materials to students or the use of au- diovisual equipment to enhance a lecture. It provides a comprehensive approach to the total process of teaching and learning and uses hardware, course materials, and instructional and management techniques to bring about more effective learning. Today’s technology, which can accu- rately record, permanently store, promptly retrieve, and widely and quickly communi- cate sounds, pictures, or written records of any act, event, or information, offers in- creased opportunities to deliver education whenever and wherever desired. Coupled with recent improvements in hardware are advances in the learning and behavioral sciences which promise to make the in- struction delivered more effective. Modern technology, however, can also more easily transform private experiences into public events. Thus while it makes educational opportunities more widely available and makes education more re- sponsive to individual needs, improper use of technology can infringe on personal rights.' Electronic eavesdropping, hidden television monitoring, ‘‘truth meas- urements’ by polygraph devices, personal- ity testing, behavior modification, and the rapid expansion of computer-based files of personal information have raised the spec-

196 = EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY O FALL 1978

ter of new and widespread invasions of privacy, a right that is especially important in education.

Education requires privacy because the independent thought and diversity of view often developed through education are es- sential to the development of personalities and value structures. As Bloustein (1964) has stated: The person “whose every need, thought, desire, fancy, or gratification is subject to public scrutiny has been de- prived of his individuality and human dig- nity. Such an individual merges with the mass. His opinions, being public, tend never to be different; his aspirations, being known, tend always to be conventionally accepted ones; his feelings, being openly exhibited, tend to lose their quality of unique personal warmth and to become the feelings of every man.”” The develop- ment of independent thought and the shaping of personal values through teach- ing and learning require that a student have opportunities to test ideas, voice thoughts, practice conduct, and alter opin- ions before making them public, without fear of ridicule or penalty. A student must be able to make a mistake and, other than on an examination, not have a permanent record made of it, to express ideas and be- haviors without having them held up to public scrutiny, and to make responses and not have them used for purposes for which they were not intended, such as for scien- tific research, or to respond to inquiries from potential employers or from other schools. Without confidence that class- room behavior and responses will not be recorded or exposed outside of class, the classroom environment and the entire edu- cational process would be compromised.

Legislatures and courts have been giving a great deal of attention to protecting the privacy of individuals through safeguards against illegal wiretaps; restrictions on the use of social security numbers for identifi-

2Some proposed legislation, Congressional concerns, and examples of personal information collected by the federal government under threat of civil and criminal sanctions are dis- cussed in Protecting individual privacy in federal gathering, use and disclosure of information (Com- mittee on Government Operations, 1974, pp. 3-6, 11-13).

cation; prohibition of unauthorized use of income tax, credit, and other records; and regulations against withholding govern- ment benefits in order to require recipients to disclose more personal information than is necessary.” In spite of all this activity, only limited attention has been paid to pri- vacy in education, and almost none to the necessity of privacy in the classroom. Privacy has been defined as the “right to be let alone” (Cooley, 1888) and as the “right to the immunity of the person—the right to one’s personality” (Warren and Brandeis, 1890). Individuals have the right to determine when, how, and to what ex- tent they will share themselves with others. It is their right to be free from un- warranted or undesired revelation of per- sonal information to others, to participate or withdraw as they see fit, and to be free of unwarranted surveillance through phys- ical, psychological, or technological means. In education a person’s privacy can be invaded in several ways. It can occur (a) through physical surveillance of individual behavior either directly by teachers, coun- selors, trained observers, and researchers or indirectly through the use of technologi- cal media; (b) by the use of data and exist- ing records for purposes for which they were not originally intended or in ways that were not made known to the subject (the opening of school records to potential employers; the use of teachers’ and coun- selors’ comments about a student to create a behavioral profile for research); and (c) through self-revelation done willingly in interviews, questionnaires, and application forms, or unknowingly through attitudi- nal, psychological, and personality tests and through behavioral science techniques such as sensitivity and encounter groups. Justice William O. Douglas expressed the concerns of many people when he stated:

We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy; when everyone is open to surveillance at all times; when there are no secrets from the Gov- ernment... (There is) an alarming trend whereby the privacy and dignity of our citizens is being whittled away by sometimes impercep- tible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen—a society in which

198 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY OC FALL 1978

The problem of maintaining the privacy of records becomes more difficult when those records are stored in computer data

banks. Diagnostic and prescriptive tech- .

niques, for example, usually require infor- mation about the individual’s past achievements and failures. When these techniques are applied manually, the amount of information involved is limited by the amount with which an individual teacher can deal. As computers are intro- duced, the amount ot information can in- crease substantially to include the stu- dent's total past academic records, detailed evaluations of performance (academic work completed, attendance data, grades, and scores on standardized achievement and intelligence tests), aspirations and goals, psychological and intellectual strengths and weaknesses; health and medical records; and information on family background (home environment and fi- nancial situation, student's and parents’ at- titudes, behavior problems and patterns, opinions) and ratings of counselors and teachers, and observational and anecdotal information. Because the computer can store and analyze information on a scale unthinkable by manual processing, there may be a tendency to gather and retain large amounts of new data which can be made available to anyone. Thus the privacy of the individual is now threatened in a way that was not feasible before. The Fam- ily Educational Rights and Privacy Act specifies safeguards but does not eliminate the centralization and proliferation of in- formation about a student nor require an educational institution to assure the accu- racy and completeness of its records and the appropriateness of its sources or to create reporting standards.

Computer systems can inflict harm in several ways, such as in the dissemination of data to wider audiences than were origi- nally intended, or in data which may con- tain factual or contextual errors, perhaps entered into the computer, perhaps by rel- atively unskilled people who do not have the discrimination or sensitivity to make necessary judgments (Miller, 1972). Further, once the data are entered, the source, purpose, method, and instrument used to gather the data are forgotten, and

the data take on an unwarranted degree of apparent accuracy and completeness.

One major computer-based system that has been in operation since 1970 is the Mi- grant Student Record Transfer System. Teachers at any of 13,000 participating schools may request from a central com- puter the cumulative academic and health records of any of about 400,000 children of migrant workers. By entering the child’s identification number or name, sex, birth- date, and birthplace at a school terminal that can access by telephone the main computer at the Arkansas State» Depart- ment of Education, the teacher can receive the requested transcript within a few hours. The system enables educators to plan more effective education programs for migrant children by assuring that their school records are not left behind as their parents move from one harvest area to another, but it has implications for the pri- vacy of the students and their parents. In spite of very conscientious efforts to guard the records, their security depends for the most part upon the privacy policies of the individual schools. Moreover, the com- pleteness, accuracy, and fairness of the file are determined by the data each school supplies using its own standards of judg- ment. It has already been suggested that this system could be the model for a cen- tralized national data bank containing the records of all American students.* The Ar- kansas project has demonstrated the tech- nical feasibility of such a system. It could become economically feasible with orbiting satellites used to provide national com- munications coverage for education.°

Another possibility in using telecom- munications and a computer properly pro- gramed for instruction (as now used for computer-assisted instruction) is that an

SDevelopment and use of the Uniform Mi- grant Record Transfer System are described in American Education (Hogan, 1973; Pfeil, 1970) and in Education Daily (1976). Questions about the privacy implications of the system are raised in The uniform migrant student record transfer system. A position paper (National Committee on the Education of Migrant Children, 1974).

6Educational applications of communication satellites and their economic implications are discussed by Grayson (1972, 1974) and Hupe (1975).

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY 199

observer in New York could monitor a stu- dent taking a computer-presented exami- nation in California, without the knowl- edge of the student. Furthermore, that ob- server could modify the examination ques- tions as the student makes successive re- sponses, so that the student could be led through an interview for whatever pur- poses the observer desired, while the stu- dent believed he or she was taking a pre- determined computer-given examination for an entirely different purpose. Because the computer could store the complete his- tory of the student’s responses and could compare and correlate them with the re- sponse histories of other students, this in- formation could later be used to prepare personality profiles, to determine job suitability, or to judge qualifications for se- curity clearance. This does not presume that prudent people will use computers in this way, but rather indicates that vigilance should be maintained to insure that noth- ing is used in this manner.

A recent trend in higher education is the provision of education at home, at work sites, and at other convenient off-campus locations. Some of these classes are now being implemented through open- broadcast television, and will probably use satellites and cable systems when more widely available. Cable systems have the advantage that they not only provide one-way video, but allow two-way com- munication between the student and a computer programed to offer instruction. Two-way capability, however, also enables interrogation of up to 180,000 homes every 30 seconds, whether the occupants are en- gaged in a learning program or not. The channel to which each set is turned can be determined; every request and response made electronically by any individual using any of the sets can be recorded.’ The Takanaw Princess Hotel in Tokyo, for example, uses its cable TV system to monitor the contents of in-room re- frigerators in order to simplify its billing procedures (‘‘Wired Hotel in Tokyo,”’ 1971).

7See Oppenheim (1962) for a discussion of the problems of privacy posed by cable systems.

Two-way audio systems, now common in school buildings, allow school principals either to speak directly to a class or to monitor classroom proceedings, unan- nounced and unobserved. Rooms equipped for behavioral research which could be used for teacher training, are sometimes constructed with one-way glass windows to allow undetectable observa- tion.

Audio and videotape recorders could also be very intrusive. Microteaching is an established method of teacher training, in which teachers practice various instruc- tional styles or approaches and record themselves and the behavior of their stu- dents for later analysis. The tape, however, records all behavior, both desirable and undesirable, and the analysis can be of student behavior as well as of teacher be- havior. As Miller (1970) notes, ‘‘there might well be a tendency to record atypical responses for purposes of demonstrating the full spectrum of student conduct to a prospective teacher. Thus a very shy or an argumentative pupil might be made the subject of an undue amount of television or video tape study.”’

In addition to the specific ways that technology can infringe on a person’s pri- vacy there is a larger societal problem— the unchallenged acceptance of a technological application because of the ubiquity of the hardware. Prolonged exposure to the technology can have a debilitating effect on attitudes, numbing sensitivity toward in- vasions of privacy. When this happens, the goals and values of society begin to change in perhaps unplanned and unconscious ways.

BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE AND THE EDUCATOR

Behavioral science, which is assuming an increasing role in educational technology, promises to make educational techniques more effective by recognizing individual differences among students and by pat- terning instructi t individual needs.

200 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY CO FALL 1978

. This position is contradic- to the basic premise of freedom and is eaning to the dignity of the individual. avioral science inappropriately applied impinge on individual values without wing for personal differences and in cation can violate the privacy of the dent.

In sensitivity sessions, teachers encour- age students to speak freely about their feelings, beliefs, observations, and reac- tions to various topics. Students may di- vulge information that is very personal and private to themselves, their families, and their friends. They may later regret offering this information. Tape recordings of such sessions, however, create a permanent rec- ord of the inadvertent remark. The record- ing may be used at teacher training ses- sions or even broadcast over an instruc- tional television system for in-service teacher training throughout an entire re- gion. A centralized library of such audio and video tapes would provide easy access for a large number of people and would provide for easy duplication and distribu- tion of the sensitive material.

Enthusiastic educators may be oblivious to the possibility that sensitive data ob- tained from often naive students, who are expected to make ‘appropriate’ re- sponses, could be used to prejudge stu- dents and could cause irreparable harm to them and their families. Professionals in psychiatry and psychology are concerned that too early self-disclosure in group therapy, including some classroom sen- sitivity sessions, can lead to exclusion of the individual by the group and cause permanent damage (Lewis, 1972).

Reflecting on the ethical values of our civilization in 1958, Pope Pius XII com- mented:

There is a large portion of his inner world which the person discloses to a few confidential friends and shields against the intrusion of others. Cer- tain (other) matters are kept secret at any price and in regard to anyone. Finally, there are other matters which the person is unable to con- sider . . . And just as it is illicit to appropriate

another’s goods or to make an attempt on his bodily integrity without his consent, so it is not permissible to enter into his inner domain against his will, whatever is the technique or method used.

A key element in any educational scheme is testing.® Most testing, however, is carried out with very little concern for privacy and is often done without parental approval. With the acceptance of psycho- logical testing as part of the educational process, the improvement in data process- ing and retrieval, the utilization of com- puters, a growing demand to make educa- tion more personal by recognizing and characterizing individual differences, and a blurring of the distinction between coun- selors and teachers, more information on more students may be made available to more people over longer periods of time. This may jeopardize an individual stu- dent's right to privacy.

In a sense, every test can be an invasion of privacy if the person being tested does not want to reveal himself. This is true for ability tests and examinations of knowl- edge, but the psychological test has more potential for violation of personal rights. Lee J. Cronbach (1960), a leading authority on psychological testing, noted:

Every man has two personalities: the role he plays in his social interactions and his ‘true self.” In a culture where open expression of emotion is discouraged and a taboo is placed on aggressive feelings, for example, there is certain to be some discrepancy between these two per- sonalities. The personality test obtains its most significant information by probing deeply into feelings and attitudes which the individual nor- mally conceals. One test purports to assess whether an adolescent boy resents authority. Another tries to determine whether a mother

®Fifteen years ago it was estimated that be- tween 150 and 250 million standardized ability tests were administered annually in the United States by schools, colleges, business and indus- trial firms, and government agencies, including the military services (see Goslin, 1963, p. 13). Since that time the number of students enrolled in educational institutions has increased from approximately 51 million to almost 63 million. Meanwhile, there has been an increased empha- sis on individualized and modularized program- ing, which requires more testing than traditional approaches. The number of standardized ability tests administered annually has undoubtedly in- creased substantially.

RE Em

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY 201

really loves her child. A third has a score indicat- ing the strength of sexual needs. These, and vir- tually all measures of personality, seek informa- tion on areas which the subject has every reason to regard as private, in normal social inter- courses. (pp. 459-460)

Unobtrusive testing (Webb, 1966) is a re- cent technique that is gaining acceptance for the observation and recording of class- room behavior. Often a small, remotely controlled, TV camera, similar to those used in banks and stores for monitoring customers, is mounted on a wall of the classroom. The observers are located in a second room. At their option, the TV cam- era may be turned on and maneuvered to scan certain parts of the room or to zoom in on a particular child. The activities of the class or of individuals can be watched on a TV monitor in the remote room and can be recorded on a videotape recorder for later analysis or use. While the children often are aware of the initial placing of the cam- era in the room, and its use may be ex- plained to them, they quickly become ac- customed to the small, unobtrusive device, forget its presence, and assume their usual classroom behavior, uninhibited by the presence of a human observer in the room.

Advances in acoustics, optics, medicine, and electronics, and the development of microminiaturization, chemical synthesis, and projective psychiatry have changed our assumptions as to the circumstances under which our beliefs, speech, and be- havior are safe from disclosure, and as to when, to whom, and the extent to which such disclosures shall be made. The porta- ble TV camera, miniaturized microphone and tape recorder, two-way mirror, com- puter, and validated personality test are commonly used in psychological and be- havioral research. Recent work has even demonstrated the potential of computers to read thought patterns in the human mind.” All these devices and techniques are pas- sive in the sense that they can be used to

9When a person wears a special helmet, a computer can identify and monitor the elec- troencephalographic signals (EEG) in the brain that are associated with language. A preliminary version of the system, called biocybernetic, can recognize the thought patterns of seven words (see Computer Decisions, 1974).

determine information about an individu- al’s personality and to record his actions.

There is another class of techniques which can probe deeply into the inner self and can even be used to change a person’s overt behavior. Values Clarification (Si- mon, Howe, & Kirschenbaum, 1972; Simon & Clark, 1975), an approach to values education, is in this category. Be- cause of the type of information solicited from the student and many of the class- room methods it employs, Values Clarifica- tion can infringe on an individual's privacy (Lockwood, 1977). The approach encour- ages a student to disclose information on a variety of topics including the personal dynamics in his or her family, the student's behavior and emotions, and other matters of a personal nature.!® It does so by utiliz- ing techniques from projective psychology and group therapy; these techniques can override, bypass, or otherwise interfere with the individual's ability to control the expression of personal information. They are deceptive in trying to discover how students feel about a certain matter with- out asking them openly. Lockwood con- cludes that

. . a substantial proportion of the content and methods of Values Clarification constitutes a threat to the privacy rights of students and their families . . . This condition is exacerbated by the fact that teachers are not trained in the use of psychologically probing strategies and, particu- larly in the case of younger children, by the rea- sonable assumption that students may be una- ware of the negative consequences of extensive self-disclosure. (p. 20)

Hypnosis, behavior controlling drugs, surgery, psychotherapy, and conditioning techniques, all of which are used in the be- havioral sciences, go a step further because

10Simon, Howe, and Kirschenbaum (1972) list typical questions used in values clarification, such as: How many of you think parents should teach their children to masturbate? (p. 52) Do you believe in God? (p. 143) What disturbs you most about your parents? (p. 148) Is there some- thing you once did that you are ashamed of? (p. 154) Did you ever cheat on tests? (p. 157) Reveal who in your family brings you the greatest sad- ness, and why. (p. 181) Tell some ways in which you will be a better parent than your own par- ents are now. (p. 181) How did you first learn to kiss? (p. 238).

202 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY 0 FALL 1978

they can be applied systematically to influ- ence values, attitudes, and behavior. This influence can be exercised either by con- trolling the information processed by the senses so that an individual’s own mental- ity will guide him or her in a desired direc- tion, or by controlling the physical mecha- nisms that underlie the senses so that a person will respond as desired regardless of the information transmitted to him (London, 1969).

Recent research on the psychiatric effects of various types of encounter group expe- riences in education, such as psycho- drama, Gestalt therapy, marathon, T-group, sensitivity training, transactional analysis, and sensory awareness, indicates that about 10 percent of the people com- pleting these experiences become psychiat- ric casualties, suffering psychotic decom- positions ranging from feelings of inade- quacy and a deterioration of interpersonal life, to severe depression and anxiety, to manic psychosis and acute paranoid schizophrenia.'! It is estimated that there are nearly 63 million students in the formal educational institutions ofthis country in 1978 (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1977), creating a danger that if these techniques are widely used in educa- tion, millions of Americans could suffer unnecessary psychic damage. Neither the medical profession, the federal govern- ment, nor the public at large would allow a medication that has such a high probability of producing serious side effects to be sold publicly without a warning of the possible effects and without professional control. The education community should not be given liberties in human experimentation that are not allowed other professional groups.

11A task force commissioned by the American Psychiatric Association studied 209 under- graduates who participated in 18 encounter groups, each of which met for 30 hours. Of the 170 people who completed the experience, 16 subjects were considered “casualties,” where the definition of casualty was stringent, requir- ing that: the student underwent some psycho- logical disorder; the disorder was persistent as judged 8 months after the group experience; and there was evidence that the encounter was the responsible agent (see Yalom & Lieberman, 1971).

It is clear that modern technological de- vices, coupled with advances in the behav- ioral sciences, provide an enormous threat to the privacy of the individual in an educa- tional setting, as well as many advantages for the betterment of mankind. While most current practices do not appear to have caused any significant amount of violation, a sufficient number of exceptions (particu- larly in the area of record keeping and computer-based data banks) have been noted to cause specific legislation to be passed and to warrant a sharp increase in attention to procedures that will assure protection of individual privacy. Technol- ogy that can reveal innermost thoughts and motives or change basic values and behaviors must be used by qualified pro- fessionals under strictly controlled condi- tions, with the full knowledge and consent of those to be affected.

PROTECTING THE RIGHT

The right to privacy is based on a belief in the essential dignity and worth of the indi- vidual. Maintaining one’s individuality in- volves the right to be free from certain types of intrusions and to have personal control over the time, conditions, and ex- tent to which one’s thoughts, beliefs, at- titudes, opinions, and personal history are to be shared or withheld from others. Without privacy, the concept of individual- ity is meaningless. It is wrong to invade individual privacy not because of the em- barrassment or mental distress that may result, as traumatic as these may be, but because of the affront to dignity and indi- viduality'? which demeans the person. As the means for developing human capabilities and technology and as a pri- mary force promoting social progress, edu- cation must ensure that the rights of the individual, including that of privacy, are preserved.

Many intrusions into personal privacy are not malicious or intentional; they are made by well-meaning teachers trying to do a better job of educating children. Too

The body of laws protecting privacy are analyzed from this point of view by Bloustein (1974).

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY — 203

often, however, the goals and concerns of the community are forgotten as teachers and administrators work with the best of intentions to achieve limited, short term objectives’. As Justice Louis Brandeis warned, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without under- standing” (Olmstead v. U.S., 1927, p. 479). Whatever the motivations of the teacher or researcher, an individual's privacy must take precedence over effective teaching, unless good cause can be shown to do otherwise.'* Good cause, however, does not relieve the teacher or school adminis- trator from the responsibility of safeguard-

13A well known example of well intentioned research in the behavioral sciences that lacked sensitivity to community mores is a “jury bug- ging” experiment conducted under the auspices of the University of Chicago, in which, un- known to the members of the jury, their deliber- ation room was wired to record their conversa- tions as part of a study of how juries arrived at verdicts. Financed by a major foundation and conducted by an eminent legal authority (who later became Attorney General of the United States), this was a scientific inquiry conceived and carried out with the best professional moti- vation and skill. Although the consent, in ad- vance, of the court and of opposing counsel was obtained, the surreptitious probing of the indi- vidual and institutional privacy of the members of the jury shocked the community when the experiment became public knowledge in Oc- tober, 1955. Federal and state statutes were passed in 1956 and 1957 to ban all attempts to record or observe the proceedings of a jury (see Rubenstein & Brim, 1965, p. 1193).

In a Bronx junior high school, researchers ad- ministered the probing Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, on a compulsory basis without parental consent, to an entire ninth grade class. Upon inquiry, an indignant parent was told to ‘‘trust the judgment of the educa- tors” (see Miller, 1970, p. 13).

More recently it was suggested that every parolee, bailee, and recidivist would be required to wear a small radio-transponder that would emit a signal every 16 seconds, allowing his whereabouts to be monitored by a computer (see Meyer, 1971).

'4Privacy is a constitutionally protected right; education is not. The Supreme Court ruled in Griswold v. Connecticut (decided in 1965) that the right of privacy is guaranteed by the Constitu- tion. In Rodriquez v. San Antonio independent school district (decided in 1973), the Court ruled that education is not a protected right under the Constitution.

ing the privacy of the student and his fam- ily. Yet, many teachers and administrators remain insensitive to the privacy implica- tions of behavioral science and modern technology in education.

Many educators assume that most par- ents desire innovation and change, and that if parents resist the proposed change, it is because they do not understand it. This is not true. Students and their parents are not a homogeneous group with respect to the goals and values they hold; their goals and values may vary widely. If any- thing, the desire of parents for change probably follows a bell shaped curve, with 10 percent strongly advocating change, 10 percent strongly resisting change, and the remaining parents exhibiting varying de- grees of ambivalence. On controversial top- ics, the group is most likely to be polarized into two major, opposite points of view, so that an average position is meaningless. The parents who resist a change often un- derstand its effects.

The introduction of television into the elementary school classroom, for instance, has been resisted by some parents, even though they themselves may use it as an electronic babysitter at home. These par- ents understand that TV gives the teacher a new resource to enrich, and improve the curriculum. The parents also realize that they may lose control over selection of the programs their children watch and that the teacher may select programs (such as sex education shows) that may transmit values that conflict with those the parents want to instill in their children. However, in deal- ing with sensitive subjects that the com- munity agrees should be taught, technol- ogy can help. Videotaped programs could be previewed by parents and school au- thorities, and decisions made about the appropriateness of the material. In this way, parents could have more control over their children’s experiences, because the teacher would no longer be the only person to determine what is to transpire in the classroom.

Psychological testing, sensitivity train- ing, role playing, life-death games, diary keeping, and other techniques of the psy- chological and behavioral sciences are also generating enormous controversy in many

204 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY 0 FALL 1978

communities. That groups of parents op- posing these techniques are not ignorant about them is evident from their testimony before school boards. '5 Rather, these edu- cational practices are being opposed be- cause the parents consider them to be threatening to parental rights and capable of use to modify their children’s estab- lished values or to impart new values to them in a way that conflicts with the values established at home according to family background, culture, or religious belief. '¢

Intent on improving education, educa- tors, scientists, and others concerned with the development and application of technology are often insensitive to the is- sues of privacy raised by the use of their techniques. For example, many psycholog- ical and behavioral practices have been in- troduced on the ground that they will make education more efficient or effective. However, improvements in efficiency through technological applications can reinforce these practices without regard to their effects. Much of what is now being done in education could be wrong, espe- cially if carried out on a massive scale. As the use of technology becomes more wide- spread, we may reach the point where er- rors cannot be detected or corrected. This is especially important because technology interacts with society and culture to change established goals and values. Propagating an error on a national level could change the original goals to fit the erroneous situa-

'sNumerous complaints about the federal government's role in developing and promoting textbooks and other curriculum materials and behavior modification techniques led to a study titled Questions persist about federal support for de- velopment of curriculum materials and behavior mod- ification techniques used in local schools (Comptrol- ler General of the United States, 1977).

16In California, Citizens for Parental Rights took legal action against the San Mateo County Board of Education on the constitutionality of its family life and sex education programs. The par- ents claimed that through this curriculum the schools are: (1) undermining parental authority; (2) invading the privacy of the home; (3) invad- ing the privacy of the mind of the child; (4) inter- fering with the free exercise of religion; and (5) establishing a secular religion. Groups of par- ents in other states have taken both administra- tive and legal action against their local school boards for similar reasons.

tion. The error then becomes acceptable by default.

Supreme Court Justice William O. Doug- las expressed his concern about the effects technology can have on the rights of the individual as follows:

Such practice can only have a damaging effect on our society. Once sanctioned, there is every indication that their use will indiscriminately spread. The time may come when no one can be sure whether his words are being recorded for use at some future time; when everyone will fear that his most secret thoughts are no longer his own, but belong to the government; when the most confidential and intimate conversations are always open to eager, prying ears. When that time comes, privacy, and with it liberty, will be gone. (Osborn v. U.S., 1966, pp. 353-354)

Fortunately, many threats to education are still only possibilities. There is time to take corrective action before they become widespread. Our ability as a society to pro- tect the privacy and dignity of the indi- vidual as technological advances are made depends on our ability to identify the is-

_sues involved, develop public awareness,

establish codes of professional ethics, pass legislation, and develop legal mechanisms to remedy abuses. !7 In developing and ap- plying technology to education, potential effects must be analyzed, so that negative possibilities can be identified and over- come before major resources are commit- ted to projects that could produce undesir- able long-term social consequences.

Too often education is viewed as an abstract or generalized process. However, education involves individuals, and educa- tional experimentation is human experi- mentation. The educator is responsible for protecting the well-being of the student.

In matters affecting privacy it is better to err on the side of the individual, than on that of research or improved educational practice. Violations of privacy can never be fully redressed. While there should be a balance between individual rights and community interests, that balance should be tipped in favor of the individual. We should provide the maximum protection for privacy that our society can endure and still function as a free society.

Legal and ethical protection for privacy are discussed in Westin (1970).

EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY =. 205

REFERENCES

Bloustein, E. J. Privacy as an aspect of human dignity: Answer to Dean Prosser. New York University Law Review, December 1964, 39, 962-1007.

Boyd, R. E., Tennyson, W. W., & Erickson, R. Counselor and client confidentiality. Counselor Education and Supervision, 1973, 12, 278-288.

Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate. Protecting individual privacy in federal gathering, use and disclosure of information (Re- port No. 93-1183). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.

Comptroller General of the United States. Ques- tions persist about federal support for development of curriculum materials and behavior modification techniques used in local schools (Report of the Comptroller General, HRD-77-49). Wash- ington, D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, 1977.

Computer Decisions. Direct brain-to-computer interface on the way. Computer Decisions, Sep- tember 1974, 6(9), p. 13.

Cooley, T. M. A treatise on the law of torts (2nd ed.). Chicago: Calahan, 1888.

Cronbach, L. J. Essentials of psychological testing (2nd ed.). New York: Harper, 1960.

Education Daily. States get more than $130 mil- lion for migrant children under Title I. Educa- tion Daily, November 10, 1976, p. 5.

Goslin, D. A. The search for ability. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1963.

Goslin, D. A., & Bordier, N. Record keeping in elementary and secondary schools. In S. Wheeler (Ed.), On record: Files and dossiers in American life. New York: Russell Sage Founda- tion, 1969.

Grayson, L. P. Costs, benefits, effectiveness: Challenge to educational technology. Science, March 17, 1972, 175, 1216-1222.

Grayson, L. P. Educational satellites: The ATS-6 experiment. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 1974, 3(2), 89-123.

Grayson, L. P. Instructional technology: On di- versity in education. AV Communication Re- view, 1976, 24(2), 117-134.

Griswold v. Connecticut. In United States reports, 381, 479-531. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov- ernment Printing Office, 1966.

Harman, W. H. Nature of our changing society: Implications for schools. In P. K. Piele & T. L. Eidell (Eds.), Social and technological change: Im- plications for education. Eugene: University of Oregon, Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration, 1970.

Hogan, P. F. Improving the education of mi- grant children. American Education, April 1973, 9(3), 20-24.

Hupe, H. H. Cost-effectiveness of an interactive broadcast satellite. Astronautics and Aeronau- tics, January 1975, 13(1), 63-68.

Lewis, F. M. Every child's requirement for privacy of personal thoughts (Address to first annual convention of the Scientific Information and Education Council of Physicians, Inc., Washington, D.C., May 20, 1972).

Lockwood, A. L. Values education and the right to privacy. Journal of Moral Education, 1977, 7(1), 9-26.

London, P. Behavior control. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.

Meyer, J. A. Crime deterrent transponder sys- tem. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Elec- tronic Systems, January 1971, AES-7(1), 2-22.

Miller, A. R. The impact of instructional technology on the right to privacy. 1970. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 039 719).

Miller, A. R. The assault on privacy: Computers, data banks, and dossiers. New York: New American Library, 1972.

National Center for Educational Statistics. Pro- jJections of educational statistics to 1985-86. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.

National Committee on the Education of Mi- grant Children. The uniform migrant student record transfer system. A position paper. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 107 440)

Olmstead v. U.S. In United States reports, 277. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Print- ing Office, 1927.

Oppenheim, J. The coaxial wiretap: Privacy and the cable. Yale Review of Law and Social Action, 1962, 2(3), 282-288.

Osborn v. U.S. In United States reports, 385. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966.

Pfeil, M. P. Computer harvests migrant records. American Education, November 1970, 6(9), 6-9.

Pope Pius XII. Address to the Congress of the International Association of Applied Psychol- ogy, Rome, April 10, 1958.

Privacy Protection Study Committee. Personal privacy in an information society. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.

Read, P. B. On the confidentiality of student test scores. December 1974. (ERIC Document Re- production Service No. ED 102 210)

Rodriquez v. San Antonio independent school dis- trict. In United States reports, 411, 1-137. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974.

Rubenstein, A. M., & Brim, O. G., Jr. Privacy and behavioral research. Columbia Law Review, November 1965, 65, 1184-1211.

206 EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATION & TECHNOLOGY 0 FALL 1978

Russell Sage Foundation. Guidelines for the collec- tion, maintenance and dissemination of pupil rec- ords (Report of a conference on the ethical and legal aspects of school record keeping). New York: Author, 1970.

Russell Sage Foundation. Student records in higher education. New York: Author, 1972.

Simon, S. B., & Clark, J. More values clarification. San Diego: Pennant, 1975.

Simon, S. B., Howe, L., & Kirschenbaum, H. Values clarification. New York: Hart, 1972.

Skinner, B. F. Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.

Testimony before Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, August 12, 1977. Part 9: Family educational rights and

{;

privacy act of 1974. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977.

Warren, S. C., & Brandeis, L. D. The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review, December 1890, 4(5), 193-220.

Webb, E. J., Campbell, D. T., Schwartz, R. D., & Sechrest, L. Unobtrusive measures: Nonreac- tive research in the social sciences. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966.

Westin, A. F. Privacy and freedom, New York: Atheneum, 1970.

Wired hotel in Tokyo. Japan Electronic Industry, May 1971, p. 52.

Yalom, I. D. & Lieberman, M. A. A study of en- counter group casualties. Archives of General Psychiatry, July 1971, 25, 16-30.