With access comes responsibility and financial liability. A student recently won a $70,000 settlement against a Minnesota school district after she was required to provide access to her personal digital accounts. I initially wrote about this issue on March 10, 2012, and stated, "This behavior is a clear 1st and 4th Amendment and possibly a 5th Amendment violation of the U.S. Constitution." On September 15, 2012, I wrote, "Public schools that require any of their students to register their social media usernames, or to provide access to their password protected digital content via required Facebook Friending or the installation of a third-party software application for any reason are in clear violation of the 1st and 4th Amendment."
This settlement along with the recent NLRB ruling that referenced Northwestern's illegal student-athlete social media policy demonstrates that K-12 schools and post-secondary institutions need to better understand their legal liabilities in the Digital Age. Drafting and enforcing a legal and reasonable social media policy is extremely important since almost every student of a certain age and employee owns or has access to a digital device/account. Students still have a right to privacy despite what some technology companies may claim.
For years, I have been publicly discussing the legal liability issues schools will encounter if they require access to their student's personal digital accounts. Schools that refuse to understand and properly address these issues will (not may) have tremendous legal liability and financial obligations. If a school wants access to their students' personal digital accounts they may need to pay $70,000 per student. There are other options available and my hope is that schools become better educated about them.
Copyright 2014 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
