Episode 269: The Student Data Free-for-All

0:00Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty vites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Look now at AA.com. It's cool time again and for a lot of us, it's nothing like it was when we were kids,

1:02laptops, parent portals, student emails, apps, you know, for grades. This isn't a back in my day episode though. I'm not, you know, I didn't drag 10 pounds of ice from underneath my bed back to the refrigerator and walk 18,000 miles to school. It's about the risks associated when more and more of our data ends up online. No, but seriously, like the risks that happen when more of our children's data ends up online and they don't have any say in that matter, you know, every login, every app, every quick survey, the school sends home is just another place where a child's information is sitting on somebody's server and it's there forever and it's going to be used forever in different ways. All of a sudden saw that all my kids are using all these apps and like they didn't know what their password was. So I knew obviously it's going to be a problem. So today we're revisiting an episode from not too too long ago who we talked with Shannon

2:07Edwards, a data privacy advocate, former eBay chief shopper, an apparent who watched our own children's data get sucked up by their school system. Nobody's really supposed to read the terms and conditions by design. And stick around until the end because a lot has happened since we first spoke to Shannon. I'm Bo Freedlander and this is what the hack, the podcast that asks in a world where your data is everywhere. How do you stay safe online? Shannon, Kimberly Edwards is a former tech industry startup leader who spent years in Europe, Europe where they have better privacy rules before landing in the online shopping world. She was actually eBay's chief shopper at one point, which all of which points to what

3:12she's doing now is an advocate for data privacy, AI ethics and tech literacy. Now a lot of her journey had to do with her becoming apparent though and she started paying close attention to what the schools were doing with her children's data. My career has been obviously in data businesses and I've been aware of privacy. I do think the landscape has changed but I don't think it really had the impact obviously that it has today until I became apparent. Shannon was on the New York State Department of Education's Data Privacy Advisory Committee which she still advises and she's published a book, AI for Families, the Ultimate Guide to Mastering AI. But about those early days before she got into privacy, advocacy, advocating for children's privacy specifically. When I was at eBay, I'll never forget doing top gifts for Valentine's Day. I had a little too, I don't know, I hadn't really gone over my notes closely enough.

4:12And I came onto the stage and there was this big piece of chocolate and I had no idea what it was. And it actually was a chocolate fortune cookie. But I had that moment of panic where I had no idea what it was. So I definitely showed the corkiest, weirdest products that people were buying. That's phenomenal. For such a long time, things were less complicated and we weren't talking about AI. And sophisticated technologies, it was just kind of fun online shopping, right? And especially from a data standpoint, it was quite cool to be able to kind of look at trends and see what people are buying and what they're interested in. I remember when my cousin first told me about Amazon, he was like, I bought a pillow on Amazon and I thought it was books and he was like, no, you can get pillows. My head exploded. But there is a downside and that's what we're going to be talking about today. I was the parent of two children who went through the New York City school system. And I remember the first time I was introduced to the concept of scheduler and the first

5:14thing that popped into my head was Dracula. Because they're trying, it's a, it's a grab. They're trying to steal my children's information so they can sell them a wee game or something. It's for something. Like I knew it was, but how much of this digital approach to coursework and stuff? Scheduling and grades and all the rest of it. How much of it is related to the less fun side, at least for consumers of retail? Like what is going on there? Are they selling information? Are they grabbing information? Are they trying to like plant a flag on the kids, you know, foreheads? Look, I mean, yes, right? So first it was, okay, let's see what we can find online, right? And it was, let us market to you or let us make you think you were looking for that giraffe, but we've actually put that, you know, that little thought in your mind. AI obviously was going to be actionable. And then it was open season.

6:16What does open season look like? What does that mean, open season? I can just think of like bugs bunny if we're still talking about kids. I mean, open season is data. Like it is the new oil, right? You know, I like to say there's no AI without all of us. Won't exist, right? So there's algorithms, there's the chips in the storage, there's data. At the same time, COVID happened. And it created this perfect storm where kids were learning online and all of a sudden you could justify all these apps. You know, we're going to make your life easier. You know, what, like 50 million kids and teachers use Google Classroom and Chromebooks? I think there's more actually Google Classroom, but 50 million Chromebooks are used each day. You all of a sudden, right? The dam broke. At the same time that we were getting ready to really sort of hoover up the data. Now on top of all of that, you have a public sector that really doesn't understand. And interestingly, that kind of goes back to my career because I always felt like a big

7:19mistake was being made in terms of consumers understanding technology. I truly always felt like an insider, outsider in Silicon Valley. And I thought, why aren't we teaching this as a competency, right? But it was all about, you know, Kabuki theater and the more you didn't know, right, the more you could justify the billionaires, right? You can justify the unicorns in all the nonsense. And so here we are in this perfect storm where people don't get it. Public sector doesn't get it. You know, COVID allowed us to open up all these apps and now big business wants data. Do you remember your first experience with these programs and the software? I think, well, first of all, I had moved back to the US. I had been in Europe. Well, there was obviously more protections, you know, data privacy protections for better or for worse. COVID for sure. You know, I all of a sudden saw that all my kids are using all these apps and like, they didn't know what their password was. So I knew obviously it was going to be a problem.

8:20And then from there, so the thing is I understand the commercial side of the tech industry. That's where I came from. So you know, all of a sudden I would see all these Chromebook apps that seem to kind of snake their way into the classroom without a contract, for instance, because they were, you know, under the umbrella of the Google contract. And all of a sudden these guys are putting on their, you know, investor decks like we work with the largest school system in the country. So I could see the shark circling. I could see these like endless apps. And I could see my own children who are pretty sophisticated just being all over the place. So that is probably the moment where I was like, okay, we're probably entering this new phase now. It's important to understand when we're talking about these apps, not only how they work, but how they make money. Most startups, especially if they're not making money. And obviously if they want to get venture funding is like how many eyeballs, how many accounts, how many consumers. Pretty much my entire career has been in businesses where they wanted a big number to share

9:22with potential investors. So I think first we're talking about an entire app store. If we're just talking about Chromebook and Google Classroom. We're talking about all these affiliated apps, right? So I think that's one part of it, which is Google sort of unleashed upon education system all these apps. We're going to make your life easier. We're going to make classrooms more efficient. Teachers teach better, help with kids, social emotional development. I mean, it was just, it's just been overwhelming, right? And that's where this desa test, which was social emotional, which is really where I started to go, wait a second. What is desa? Desa is a great story because it was this, you know, New York City right in these checks, this $18 million three year contract with this company aperture. It was coming on the heels of COVID where they said, you know, we got to check in and see how kids are feeling and all that gooey sort of subjective stuff.

10:24But right from the start, it was a perfect storm of unrest because teachers were already exhausted and now they're being told, now you need to fill out these questionnaires about your kids, right? And they're really like very personal. Like do they respond to X, Y or Z feedback? Are they optimistic? Things that were gooey were the teachers were like, I don't know the kids well enough. The good news is teachers were like muting right away. The questions you mentioned that the teachers blocked at answering were they about specific students or students in general? So was it Bob and Sally or was it just students? They had to fill it out for every student. Okay, that's despicable. That's despicable. Right. So we're lucky. That you're marking a kid like, listen, miss if you're listening right now or pox upon your family. If that woman had to fill out a form about my child, I would put a formal complaint into the system because she didn't like my kid.

11:25This is where this one we were quite lucky. Parents were first and foremost, no way you're judging my child. The teachers were like, I don't want to judge your child. That piece of it was already a no go. But not many people were talking about the other side of it, which was, who is this company? Where's this data being stored? What if it gets hacked? How is it triangulated with other data related to our kids? And all that stuff wasn't the main concern. The part that got me fired up and led to me focusing more on this area was, who's this company? What kind of due diligence is occurring? What if they get acquired? You can go down the list of a million ways in which you'd be really worried about the integrity of this data and where it lends, what does a contract look like? That's the piece that balls through the cracks and continues to fall through the cracks. That's a lot of data being stored somewhere. Do we know where? The good news is, there is no Dessa. There was so much outrage.

12:26Parents could opt out. Once word got out, you could opt out and you should opt out. It spread like wildfire. The teachers were obviously saying opt out, right? So Dessa is dead in New York City. We had Jen Keltrider from the Mozilla Foundation on the show. Privacy not included. And Shannon's nodding because she knows who Jen Keltrider is. One thing that she said that is so true as children cannot be expected to read the terms of service or user agreements. But by the same token, neither can parents. And a lot of parents are like, whatever. They used to call it backpacking, right? They'd backpack a menmaul home. And now it's all digital. But when my kids were the last generation where they actually put paper and a nap in a backpack and it came home and then we still didn't read it. Because we were very busy making dinner and trying to get everyone to do their homework. I think that the problem here is when the only safeguard in the system,

13:30is it beleaguered New York City schoolteacher saying, you don't need to do this? The system's not working right. Nobody's really supposed to read the terms and conditions by design. They're intentionally unreadable and long. I think somebody actually calculated how long it would take to read most of them and it was days. So that's not going to be fixed. You're supposed to have a cop troller's office that contracts with the companies. But send all the protections that are required. That doesn't necessarily happen. I think a lot of times that it's well-intended, it's just, again, remember what I'm saying about these sort of shark's circling. Very sophisticated, slick, tech industry, commercial teams, and public sector overwhelmed underpaid teams, right? So it's created an ecosystem where there aren't a lot of controls. Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines you'll enjoy comfort and

14:41convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty vites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at AA.com. Monday on NBC. US Merch壩! All new line of fire. The thrilling new crime drama. The world sees us as heroes, but they don't know what the job really costs. One family of federal agents. It's one thing to put yourself in danger. It's different when it's your family. Balance is duty to their country. Massassum is still out there. Stop! And each other. How do you protect the world and the people you love at the same time? Every case hits home online of fire. Monday on NBC. In January of 2022, illuminate education security team Cotta Hacker, who'd been inside their system using log-in credentials from an employee who'd left the company

15:45more than three years earlier. By the time they caught him, he'd walked away with the personal data of students. The infriche was somewhat granular, too. It was not just names and their dates of birth, but addresses, records, education records, you know, grades and stuff. Disability, status, special education information if there was some. As well as economic status, whether or not they were housed, it was just a lot. Illuminate told schools that the data was encrypted. It wasn't. It was sitting in plain text. An Avenger had actually previously flagged the vulnerability two years before the compromise. A little bit of irony coming on in your program today was I have been hacked. There are almost one million children in the school system and the parents related to that. We can cause friction. There is this ability for each one of us to do just that one thing that when you start rolling it up, creates enough friction to drag the process down and slow it down.

16:45In the case of Dessa, the friction was parents saying, I'm opting out. If we could just assume it's more suspicious, more questioning, the problem is this marched towards inevitability. This idea that, well, what are you going to do about it? It is what it is. What am I supposed to do? I'm just one person. Every person that does that contributes to more of the same. So if you have a school district with, say, a million kids, it's not very common, but New York's an example. That's a lot of friction, but what about smaller school districts? Look, I feel like none of these technologies operates in isolation. Obviously, we've got the biggest school district here, but they're working across the country. If everybody in the country was like, you know what? Google Classroom, I don't like this or I don't like that. Google would take note. I think truly the problem is this inevitability thing.

17:48This idea that we have conditioned everyone to believe that the tech industry is this mystical place of these people who know more than you, who we just need to do what they say. And I truly believe there's not a person out there and in this case a parent who doesn't look at some of this and have an opinion about, you know, if you believe that your opinion matter, right? You might say, I don't want to do that. The infection is a situation, hopefully. Friction is a generalized situation that we hope for among all the parents out there. And this is the, you know, the parents who are coming up right now with kids are the Kendrick Lamar, you know, generation. They grew up listening to ADHD and that. And so they're not, they don't want to, they don't want to play. And I think that what we're starting to hit a tipping point, you see it on social media with the advent of boredom.

18:50Obviously, like, you know, we, we're now being told all of a sudden that boredom is a really good thing and we don't have enough of it and our children need it. So there's this like very subtle, I would call it a situation. Tell me about the situation with parents right now because I think you talked about the inevitability. But the other side of that coin is it's inevitable we're going to say, uh, uh, that. So where are we in that continuum? I still think we need to get over a major hurdle, which is the tech industry is no smarter than you. We've conditioned over the past few decades. I saw it. I was in Silicon Valley in 1999. I had a really great few months of a career before the, you know, market crashed and I had to protect that. I was a finance or mad. You know, whenever industry was at tech, but it's always been, look, we've watched movies like the social network and I think most people are scared to sound stupid, right? If we could get over that, look, I like to use the analogy of food.

19:51You and I could all have a conversation about Doritos, right? And we could talk about whether we think they're good for you or not. Are they going to cause obesity? Is it a nice little snack? Not once does any of us worry about the fact that we can't pronounce the ingredients. Don't know how it's made. Don't have PhDs and foods. We actually don't know anything about Doritos, but we do have a sense of whether it's good for our family. Why can't we have, they've not checked out about it. You don't have to have a computer science degree to know that you don't want to fill out this fourth online. Let's get you to illuminate Dessa Aperture. That's another one of these companies. How do they get vetted? Do they get vetted? How do they end up in our schools being used? I mean, they go in, they've got these slick presentations, they say all the right things. I mean, if we said social emotional development post COVID, we have this solution in every

20:53city, it's different. Sometimes business development works, there's sometimes an inside connection and all that good stuff. I don't want to be too cynical, but you know, you go with the pitch, they've done this before and next thing you know, they've got a contract for $18 million. Listen, I have a pitch. If you steal my idea, I'm going to sue the hell out of you, but here's my idea. I am, I have an app. It's just a gray screen with a timer on it and it's called boredom. I want kids to be on there for 20 minutes a day. They sit there, they used to call it meditation. The problem is. You know, I think in the system, the education system, you have people who want to make sure they're on the cutting edge of things, but in the process, they're cutting out the most important thing, which is experience. And that's not this other thing that Dessa was pointed out, but just the experience of a teacher with a student and like where there's no intervening tech.

21:59I mean, even a smart board, like I think that those smart boards that have in school, they're kind of like, there's something nice about a chalky old school teacher. It's already in the past, it's already in the rear of the mirror. If you look at Google's education offering, how many former public school teachers and administrators now work for Google, they reach out their public sector business alone. It's too far gone. We won't get back to that kind of learning experience ever. Well, they will in like a, you know, a Steiner school, maybe Waldof, but, you know, you're saying no. No. I still think, I still think then we're also talking about the lure of AI, right? The booze your schools are saying, look, you can learn from a brat or pursue your interest in whatever you never have to come to the bathroom. And I'm sure you've done this too, listen Shannon, I have spent time with AI just asking a question. Like, what should I tell my friend who's a complete jerk?

22:59And you know, and AI will be like, well, you know, they'll give me the most vanilla answer on earth because it is a mashup of all the opinions of things like that in the world. And so what you get is a big, shiny mediocrity. That's what you get from AI. Here's the bad news, I think, for people there and we're all sort of old enough to have seen the cycle of the dot com boom and bust, but this obsessive need to collect data persists. Unfortunately, kids today are stuck in the middle where we're trying to siphon off their data. Someday it'll be really cool, not going to be today. It's not going to be tomorrow. We're in that weird phase where people might think there's nothing to see, but that's absolutely not the case. Listen, the implications, the fallout, forget implications, the real life problems that are going to be caused by the data of all those students being compromised is very real. And I don't really know where to start, but I'd be curious to hear what you have to say

24:02about it. We haven't even talked about to the fake and image related content that is siphoned off these kids, via social media. I am definitely someone that thinks TikTok should be banned. Primarily because China is the largest exporter of facial recognition technology. You're going to have deep fakes and you're going to have all of this sort of social emotional data. Then you're going to have maybe data that was stolen. There's bullying. There's a full out harassment. I mean, you could probably create a deep fake of your teacher stealing something. There you go. You're getting teachers in trouble. You could do a deep fake of like a bomb scare. You could do a deep fake of the back of your buildings. Like, oops, there's a bomb. And then, you know, I'm not to give anyone ideas. Don't do that. But I do think you're right. A trouble making, right? The things we used to do when we were younger than had a higher barrier for entry is now much easier. So I think chaos, bullying and long term reputation. I mean, the fake porn is already a serious problem primarily for teenage girls.

25:03Well, you, it's not just reputation in that regard, Shannon. It's also reputation when a child's going to apply for a high school or a college or secondary education. Who knows how much information is going to be out there and who's going to be selling it to third parties who are then saying, you want to get, you know, I know you only have 500 slots for your incoming class and you need a way to vet them. Well, we have all the data from the last 20 years from, you know, public ed that will tell you which students to avoid. And you just don't know. There's nothing you can do. It is happening. You can't stop it. Yes, there's policy, but it is, it is a mess. What you can do is you savvy and protective of your data. When I saw my social security number was part of this dump, very easy to look up has your social security number been hacked. 99% of people probably haven't checked. I know how to quickly freeze my credit, remove my name.

26:04The fact that people don't know how to do that is a tragedy that we're not all protecting our data. We protect our homes, health, kids, we need to be savvy about it. It doesn't mean other things can't occur, but we can't just give it up to someone else. Okay, so, you know, if you are wondering what to do, where there is the possibility to opt out, you should. Obviously, if someone asks for your social security number or your child, social security number, you will say no, but it doesn't matter because yes, there have been the prefixes of social security numbers are different now. It no longer correlates to where you were born and the Equifax breach that affects not children, but adults. Anyway, social security number, if you're asked for it, still say no. You never know what data set it criminals using and if your social security number isn't in it, why would you want to add to that? Take the chance. Just say no. Not just that either. I want people to delete what you want to do is write every company and you go through.

27:10I mean, yes, it's labor intensive, but you're the one that signed up for these things. You've got to get it together, right? You go to each company and you say, close my account, delete my data, right? Because I think a lot of people think they can just unsubscribe and that is not what you need to do. You need to go and write the company and the good news is bad news, but good news because of the California privacy laws and the requirement to do that in California, it's generally extended to everybody. So, you've got to go through and do it. You need to do the work. Now I mean, that is exactly what DeleteMe does and it's just it is worth plug here. If you don't want to take all the time going through every single one of these places where your data may be, you can use a company like DeleteMe for a very affordable subscription and annual fee that will do the work for you. And it's worth doing it because DIY removals are, yeah, possible in a lot of ways.

28:10There's some that are more difficult and you still will need a company like DeleteMe doing the removals. But, oh man, it's a full-time job. Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admiral's Club lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty vites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at AA.com. Monday on NBC, all new line of fire, the thrilling new crime drama. The world sees us as heroes, but they don't know what the job really costs. One family of federal agents. It's one thing to put yourself in danger. It's different when it's your family.

29:11Balance is duty to their country. Massassum is still out there. Stop! And each other. How do you protect the world and the people you love at the same time? Every case gets home online of fire. Monday on NBC. Now, what do you tell parents who are trying to figure out what they can actually do to keep their children safe and protect their data and keep them out of the data broker system? Talk to their children. Have the conversation. You know, I think so many parents do not, and they are not on the same page with their kids. Start simple. What are you looking at? What are you downloading? You have to have this dialogue. Have a plan as a family. So everybody has a commitment to, you know, good online hygiene. So again, the whole closing accounts. Having strong passwords. These family accounts. You got to do it together. I think parents have to take it seriously. I think the idea sometimes makes their head spin, even my smartest friends. They're like, oh, I use my anniversary of the password.

30:13Like really the basics. Get your password situation in order. Believe you have the power, you know, believe that you are smart enough. Commit to understanding your data privacy situation. It's different for all of us, right? Make sure that you're deleting accounts. Talk to your kids and educate yourself about what they're using in school. Once you know you can opt out, you're never going to forget that you can opt out and you'll opt out again. So some of these things aren't ongoing barriers. It's just that one hill that you climb over and you're like, oh, wait. I kids don't have to use anything. I can always opt out. So I don't think it's this like, onerous task where you're constantly, you know, trying to figure this stuff out at school. Like, no, just understand the fundamentals, right? And once you do, you're in a whole different position than you were yesterday. Okay. So that was 2024.

31:18How do things stand now? Let's start with desa. It's dead. The New York City DOE quietly made it optional. They let the three year, $18 million contract with aperture, laps, no press release. They just stopped it. Shannon also mentioned the illuminate breach, where there was maybe a million affected. The real number is over 10 million students. And since we recorded this California, Connecticut, New York settled with illuminate for a poultry $5.1 million. The FTC required illuminate to actually build the security program into lead data. It doesn't need anymore. Yada, yada, yada. Same old story, same old problem. You know, that data is out there. In December of 2024, weeks after we taped this episode, college student hacked into power school, the system that runs student records for thousands of districts nationwide. 62 million students and nearly 10 million teachers were affected. Social security numbers, medical records, special education, files, really sensitive stuff,

32:23even bus applications. I think this whole situation is very disheartening. Laura Davies is worried about the privacy of her children's records. The software used by her Saskatoon area school board was hacked late last year. And months later, personal data is still at risk of getting released. At this point, as parents, what can we do? Like it feels like a really powerless situation for us. Power school, an application used across North America, is now telling school boards a pay to ransom after December's hack in an attempt to get the compromised data deleted. So how did he do it? I mean, how do hackers do things? In this case, he got through a customer support portal using stolen credentials, which can be purchased through, you know, well, it can be bolstered by information you get from people search sites and from stuff you find on the dark web. He was inside that system for over a week before anyone caught it.

33:23Power school paid him $2.85 million in ransom in Bitcoin. And he sent them a video proving he deleted everything with his pinky to the side of his mouth. No doubt. And then he started extorting individual school districts with the exact same stolen data, shocking. Send examples straight to districts, officials as proof that he still had it. On his website, Power School says it serves more than 90 of the top 100 US districts. Cybersecurity expert Matt Malone says it appears Power School didn't have enough security protocols in place. The problem with this is there were so security numbers involved with children and those children may not notice their credit for years. Matthew Lane, the 19 year old student responsible for this, also extorted a wireless carrier of the year before he pleaded guilty in June 2025. In October, a federal judge sentenced him to four years in prison and $14 million in restitution.

34:24Boy, I wonder if that's actually going to happen. So that's just one example. Some students in the valley could qualify to get part of a $17 million class action settlement. It involves the popular college and career readiness program Naviance, whose parent company is accused of violating student privacy by harvesting their data. Naviance had third party tracking software called HEAP. That's HAP embedded in it. And that software captured students' key strokes. Clicks. Private messages to counselors. Wow. Power school denies any wrongdoing, saying it's strictly and proactively follows legal, regulatory, and voluntary requirements for protecting student privacy and does not collect, maintain, use, or share student personal information beyond what is authorized. Even if they had good intentions, when your data is collected, it's only a matter of time

35:24until someone like Matthew Lane gets access. This isn't hypothetical. It isn't a someday problem. A maybe risk. We talk ourselves into worrying about. We should be terrified. It already happened to 62 million children and their families. Most of whom never even knew power school existed until a letter showed up saying their social security number was in the hands of a 19 year old who wanted Bitcoin for it. A lot of Bitcoin. Every app, every portal, a school hands you as a decision made on your children's behalf. That affects their data forever. Usually, almost always without your input, unless you're on the PTA and then even so what. And definitely has no interest in the child's input, right? Crazy. And once that data is collected, you don't control what happens to it. You're trusting a vendor. You're trusting a wannabe big tech vendor.

36:26And they're subcontractors. And whoever that subcontractor sells to, most likely a company that's having a hard time hitting their numbers and they're doing anything to hit their numbers. Anything doesn't matter. And hoping none of them get sloppy or greedy or get hacked or just quietly monetize things they probably shouldn't be in the background. So do the boring stuff. Ask your school what it's using and whether you can opt out. Find your foot down and opt out. Make them backpack your stuff home. You know, that's what they used to call it. It's a verb backpack. Paper in the backpack. Here, mom, sits there for months. You find it at the end of the school year. Whatever. It's better than having all your data go walk about. Here's what you can do. Freeze your child's credit. You can. You know, it's totally possible. And yes, children can have their identity stolen years before they ever access it. So be safe out there.

37:28Be worried because you should be because the threat is real and it's pervasive and it's being made to seem normal, but it's not normal. It's our job to keep pointing out it's not normal and your data has value and it shouldn't be in just anybody's hands. Okay. This time for the 10 foils one, our parent would take away to keep you safe on and offline. And this one's pretty simple. Children do not know the value of their personal information. They don't. They don't know what their data is worth, but it's worth a lot. And there are people who desperately want their information, their data. They want to start tracking them. They want to figure out what they want. They want to market you parents so that they have a better idea of what you might be willing to buy for them. It's not something you want going walk about. So talk to your children about the information they willingly give up.

38:33Do they use an app, a game on an app, on a phone or a tablet? Do they understand that their usage on that app, that game, is giving information to a company about them that will be sold to third parties and will be used to market things to them? They don't. They don't. It's worth talking about. Yeah, it's icky. The world of data brokers is not awesome. It's the opposite of awesome. But it needs to be discussed the same way that, you know, other things that aren't great need to be discussed with children. That's just part of the job of parenting. Anyway, I mean my two cents, so you don't have to do it if you don't want to, but I think it's a good idea. I really do. Okay, I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. What the hack is produced by a bunch of people.

39:34I'm one of them. Andrew Steven is another and Sarah Heward helps out enormously from time to time. We're available wherever you get your podcasts. If you are a regular listener to this show and you don't use delete me already, I want to tell you you should. If you're not and you want to, here's what to do. Go to joindeleteme.com slash WTH. That's joindeleteme.com slash WTH and get 20% off. I kid you not 20% 20% off. That's joindeleteme.com slash WTH. Hi, I'm Rick Rubat. And I'm Royce Yadkov. Other professors at Harvard Business School and co-hosts of the Chart Topping Podcast think big by small. If you want to become an entrepreneur, starting a company from scratch isn't your only option. You can buy an established, profitable small business, step in as CEO and build on what already works. This path is known as acquisition entrepreneurship and we've spent over 15 years helping hybrid

40:38business school students explore. On the new season of Think Big by Small, we bring those lessons to you through candid conversations with entrepreneurs, investors and industry experts. Together we explore every stage of the journey from finding and financing the right business to closing the deal, meeting the company and eventually selling it. Whether you're actively considering business ownership or simply curious about a different route to entrepreneurship, Think Big by Small can help you take the first step. Follow Think Big by Small on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Monday on NBC, all new line of fire, the thrilling new crime drama. The world sees us as heroes but they don't know what the job really costs. One family of federal agents. It's one thing to put yourself in danger. It's different when it's your family. Balance is duty to their country. The assassin is still out there. Stop! And each other. How do you protect the world and the people you love at the same time? Every case hits home online of fire.

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