Tag: privacy

The Danger in I-Ready Data

April 20, 2025 Ann Marie Banfield

To be honest, there is no real online vendor today that protects your child’s personal data that they collect. When you read their privacy statement, it will sound like your child’s personal information is secure, but they won’t tell you that their data is not secure. Many kids in school use I-Ready. I-Ready comes with … Read more

The Clock Is Ticking on the TikTok Ban

April 10, 2025 John Klar

The April 5 deadline for TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to divest its holdings or be shut down revives a controversial battle. Free speech advocates and millions of American TikTok users who practically have a codependent relationship with the video-sharing app are facing off with national security concerns and impacts on children’s mental health. Will … Read more

Eliminate Student Data Tracking

February 17, 2025 Doris Hohensee

D.O.G.E. just cut $900 million from an agency, the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), which tracks American student data. Did the cuts go deep enough to eliminate funding for the State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) ? This system tracks student data from all fifty states, despite the fact that the federal government has no constitutional … Read more

Democrats Put Your ‘Data’ and ‘Privacy’ At Risk – Not Trump or Musk

February 10, 2025 Niko Roswell

Democrats fear Elon having access to sensitive information. Too many people combine the terms hack, breach, and leak as synonyms. A data “hack” is intentionally done by an outside source breaking into computer systems with malice intent. Breach is the term being used to make people fear Elon. A data “leak” is the accidental release of information, often due … Read more

Legislators Push Back On REAL ID

January 17, 2025 Steve MacDonald

Many a soul has resisted the national call to accept REAL ID in place of most states’ standard driver’s licenses. Every state is in compliance with the federal mandate, though not every driving licensed citizen needs to be. Those concerned about giving more information to the Feds to archive have friends in every state, including … Read more

Testimony: Prohibiting Businesses from Scanning Drivers’ Licenses

January 18, 2025January 16, 2025 Deb Johnson

HB 77-FN: prohibiting businesses from scanning individuals’ licenses when selling alcohol or tobacco products. Thank you for addressing this issue that threatens the public’s ability to protect against identity theft and other dangers associated with private identifying information. Since delving into this issue, I have come across other threats to individual’s rights to keep themselves … Read more

Who Will Protect Student Data? Right Now, No One

January 14, 2025 Ann Marie Banfield

Here is my email to Education Commissioner Edelblut and Legislators on the PowerSchool Data Breach: Commissioner Edelblut, PowerSchool, owned by Bain Capital, experienced an international cybersecurity incident that involved unauthorized access to certain PowerSchool SIS customer data. This has impacted many school divisions across North America. PowerSchool is a 5.6 billion dollar company that lost personal … Read more

New Legislation Could Claw Some of Your Privacy Back

January 13, 2025 Steve MacDonald

Longtime readers may recall a pair of stories in 2023 regarding state laws and convenience stores scanning the barcodes on people’s driver’s licenses. The outlets had foregone looking at the front to confirm the age for cigarette and alcohol purchases, instead scanning the barcode on the back to pull in that and a pile of … Read more

Send This To Your Superintendent and School Board

November 11, 2024 Ann Marie Banfield

Parents need to ask their Superintendent and School Board what they plan to do with this information:

chip cyborgs tracking digital Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Bank of Canada Drops Plan for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

September 25, 2024 Steve MacDonald

A centrally controlled digital currency is a red flag to anyone devoted to privacy and individual liberty. ‘Grok friend Aaron Day ran for president as a platform to warn people about CBDC and the threat it represents to liberty. Once your money can be monitored, controlled, and censored by the government, that ties into social … Read more

Merrimack School DIstrict web site screen grab altered

SEL is Draining Tax Dollars from the Merrimack School Budget

March 23, 2024 Ann Marie Banfield

Social and Emotional Learning is the latest fad in public education. SEL is considered Tier 1 in a three-tiered mental health framework for students attending public schools. Money for this initiative came through a federal grant several years ago, but as those funds dried up guess who is left to fund these initiatives? The local taxpayers.

“Apple’s Journal App Probably Isn’t a Privacy Nightmare” – But the Tech Certainly Is!

March 8, 2024 Op-Ed

Your iPhone, Android, Tablet, Car, smart TV, or any other “Smart” device has huge vulnerabilities. Your phone is not the place to store private information, and if you think you are not being tracked by your phone, tablet, smartwatch, or even your car, you are sadly mistaken. Shutting off features does nothing but limit them to hackers and governments.

Deteriorating … Mental Health, Privacy, and Parental Consent in Public Schools

February 29, 2024 Ann Marie Banfield

As schools begin the shift to providing mental health services, parents need to be aware of some big problems that have been uncovered. Personally identifiable mental health information on students has already been shared, but schools are still failing to acquire informed parental consent for their child’s mental health assessments and services.

New Hampshire’s Covered Bridges and the Expanding Surveillance State

February 18, 2024 Steve MacDonald

There are only 60 covered bridges left in the State of New Hampshire. I can’t say how many we used to have or what happened to them, but someone has proposed creating a loophole in the state’s existing prohibitions against video surveillance. Why? ”

Night Cap: Are We Still The “Live Free Or Die State”?

January 13, 2025February 13, 2024 Deb Johnson

We are slipping, folks. Most of us have been proud to live in the state with this distinctive motto. But, is that all it was meant to be…a motto? Let’s talk about this. Last fall I noticed that convenience stores were scanning driver’s licenses for proof of age, whether you were obviously an octogenarian or … Read more

Are Driver’s Licenses Being Scanned Illegally in New Hampshire?

January 12, 2025December 22, 2023 Deb Johnson

Since writing the first article, Are Convenience Stores Violating Your Privacy, I have been gathering more information and find the Driver License Scanning issue to be quite the bottomless rabbit hole.

DNA Puzzle Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

Night Cap: DNA Kits and Associated Privacy Risks Posed by Police & Hackers

December 15, 2023 Op-Ed

In advance of a holiday season that could see record numbers of ancestry kits given as gifts, The Rutherford Institute is cautioning the public about the significant privacy risks associated with corporations, government agencies, and hackers possibly gaining access to one’s familial DNA.

Smartphone Apps that Make Pictures of Clothed Girls Naked vs. Boys in Girls Locker Rooms …

December 10, 2023 Auntie Vaquser

Artificial Intelligence apps have begun to proliferate across the internet that allow you to take pictures of clothed girls and women with a smartphone and make them nude. Victims feel humiliated, and the potential for abuse is enormous, but I’m sensing a disturbance in the transgender force.

Surveillance chris-yang-1tnS_BVy9Jk-unsplash

Parents in Every School District Are Losing Parental Consent Over Their Children

December 6, 2023 Op-Ed

Parents in every School district are losing parental consent over their children. School Boards are revising changes to the EHAB and JLCF policies, which deal with DATA GOVERNANCE SECURITY and WELLNESS, respectively.

world-earth technology image by geralt - pixaby

Separate Tech and State

December 4, 2023 Op-Ed

Some libertarians dismiss concerns over social media companies’ suppression of news and opinions that contradict select agendas by pointing out that these platforms are private companies, not part of the government. There are two problems with this argument.