by Jeff Gould, SafeGov.org

SafeGov.org today released the results of a survey conducted by Brunswick Insight in May 2013 on Australian parents’ views of cloud services and online privacy in schools.

One thousand parents of children in Australian primary to high school equivilents were asked a series of questions related to cloud computing use in schools, the use of children’s data for commercial and advertising purposes and options for protecting the privacy of children.

The survey provided the following insights:

• Parents expect major benefits from cloud services provided to children in schools. Australian parents expect that cloud services provided in school such as email and document collaboration will help their children acquire the skills and problem-solving abilities they will need in the 21st Century economy.
• Parents don’t want commercial data mining or online advertising in schools.While most parents in Australia are not aware that some cloud providers could “data mine” children’s email and web browsing for ad targeting purposes, they overwhelmingly object to the practice once informed.
• Parents want schools and government to take action. Parents’ objections to data mining in school are more than theoretical – they want it stopped. They believe schools and government are in the best position to take effective action. Specifically, they expect new regulationsand voluntary opt-out policies.

For full details on the survey results and the high-level findings, please view the report here.