原文泛讀
受疫情影響，無數中小學生被迫“觸網”，他們的學習被各種網課擠滿了
與其他的APP/客戶端一樣，在註冊網課平臺時，我們也得“同意”各種各樣的“條款”
作為監護人的你，有注意孩子在網絡環境下的隱私問題嗎？
We've made new rules to protect our families. We must protect kids' privacy too.
(CNN) The terms and conditions of our lives have changed beyond recognition in recent weeks. It's time the terms and conditions provided by digital technology companies be rewritten to match.
Consider the deal we've made with most tech companies: we give up our private information and they give us free or low-cost digital services in exchange for using this data however they want. [注：本句話中的however意思是“無論怎樣”(no matter how)]
On any given day, this deal is dishonorable. During the Covid-19 pandemic, when children and their parents are relying on the internet more than ever, it's immoral. Data that is collected from and about our children, used by tech companies, and shared with third parties can have a serious impact on their future. Tech companies should safeguard our children's privacy by stopping these invasive practices.
From school to sports to social activities and so much more, we are scrambling to get our kids online in order to adapt to our new reality. We are logging in to countless platforms to bring the world into our homes. In doing so, we're also giving out our children's personal information at an ever-increasing rate.
In disaster mode, we're giving our kids devices, asking them to talk with smart assistants, and doing so much more without having the capacity to read, let alone understand, what we're agreeing to. And as we find ourselves homebound, we are sharing private information about our kids online, in addition to setting them up to share their own information from social media to smart devices and beyond.
The risks are high when it's unclear who is getting that information or what they're going to do with it; marketing companies can use the data from our children to create targeted ads, while data brokers have been known to collect data about children as young as 2 years old.
Of course, there are people and institutions we want to allow digital access to our children's information. Take remote learning, for example: we want our children's teachers and schools to see when they've logged in, what progress they've made and where they might be struggling. This allows teachers to stay engaged with their students and address any potential problems, whether it's in real-time classrooms or recorded modules, discussion posts, or online assignments. Without information sharing, remote learning fails.
But there are key risks with remote learning: we don't want trolls or hackers to get access to our children's private information, which can happen when unauthorized third parties harass virtual classrooms in real-time (a recent outbreak of Zoombombing has led the New York Attorney General's office to open an investigation into the company's privacy practices, prompting the company to update its privacy policy and release a statement that they were implementing safeguards) or break into educational data repositories (as happened to educational software maker Pearson in fall 2018. The company states they found and fixed the vulnerabilities once they had been discovered).
We also don't want any of our children's personal information to be collected, used, or shared by ed tech providers or affiliated third party providers, beyond what is necessary for remote learning. This private information can be used by schools to digitally monitor students for potential safety risks and share this information with law enforcement, according to a report in Education Week. Data brokers can obtain this information and use it to build profiles of students based on ethnicity, affluence and lifestyle for marketing purposes, as a study by the Center on Law and Information Policy at Fordham University School of Law found.
Their information can also be aggregated, analyzed, and re-shared by data brokers with future gatekeepers like colleges, insurance companies, or employers. Information sharing -- which happens across all types of digital tech, not just ed tech -- can have serious effects on our children's opportunities, as data is being collected and used to shape their destinies.
Under federal student privacy law, schools that are using digital tech to handle children's "personally identifiable information" (PII) without getting parental consent up front should have contractual protections in place such so that the digital tech provider is obligated not to re-share PII or use it for purposes other than remote learning facilitation. Even under normal circumstances, however, it may be difficult or impossible for schools and school districts to negotiate these complex student arrangements -- understandably, they do what we do in our homes: click or swipe to accept boilerplate terms and conditions that typically don't offer meaningful privacy protection.
Given the pressure the pandemic has placed on our educational institutions, they are even less equipped to focus on best practices for privacy protection or even privacy law compliance.
As parents, we're even worse off than schools -- even if we do read all the fine print, we have zero ability to negotiate for stronger privacy protection. We can take or leave digital tech -- and right now, the vast majority of us can't leave it.
In the past, parents have had to rely on the government to enforce privacy laws. This past fall, the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General reached a record high settlement with Google and YouTube, a subsidiary, for the companies' alleged violations of children's digital privacy laws. At the time, Google said in a statement, "We know how important it is to provide children, families and family creators the best experience possible on YouTube and we are committed to getting it right," affirming that they would "limit data collection and use on videos made for kids only to what is needed to support the operation of the service."
We still need federal and state agencies to serve as watchdogs, but it's understandable that resources are spread thin right now. That leaves parents as both the first and last lines of children's privacy defense. Because parents have little bargaining power, what happens now with children's digital privacy is largely in the tech companies' hands.
Tech companies should switch their default settings so that they do not collect or share any information beyond the service or product that is being advertised. If we're using a fitness tracker to get our kids to exercise, for example, the data about our children's health should stay between the user, the device provider, and any third parties necessary to get us the data we need.
Tech companies should also be more transparent about their privacy policies and take a more proactive stance when it comes to safeguarding our children. When we blindly click "accept," we should be agreeing to terms and conditions that guarantee our children's data will not be used for marketing, advertising, product development and profile building, or sold to data brokers or similar entities.
If tech companies want to continue to engage in these activities, they should clearly itemize each specific activity and its purpose, including what data will be collected and which third parties are involved before asking for our explicit consent.
Many of us are currently stuck at home, relying on different tech platforms to maintain a semblance of our lives; tech companies should protect the privacy of our children, and their ability to explore, thrive, and grow at this time.
詞彙卡片
1. dishonorable [dɪˈsɒn.ə.rə.b(ə)l] adj.
A dishonorable action causes embarrassment and a loss of people's respect
不光彩的
- This was a dishonorable attempt to avoid responsibility.
想要逃避責任很不光彩。
- They regard killing an unarmed man as dishonorable.
他們認為殺害手無寸鐵之人很不光彩。
2. scramble [ˈskræm.b(ə)l] vi.
to compete with other people for something there is very little of
爭搶
- [ + to infinitive ] People are scrambling to buy property before prices rise even further.
人們搶著在進一步漲價之前購買房產。
- Thousands of people will be scrambling for tickets.
將有數千人搶購門票。
3. harass [ˈhær.əs] vt.
to continue to annoy or upset someone over a period of time
騷擾；使煩惱，打擾
- Stop harassing me!
別煩我！
- One woman engineer claimed that she had been sexually harassed by a male manager.
一位女工程師聲稱遭到過一位男性經理性騷擾。
4. repository [rɪˈpɒz.ɪ.t(ə)r.i] CN
a place where things are stored and can be found
倉庫；貯藏室；存放處
- a fire-proof repository of/for government papers
存放政府文件的防火貯藏室
注：
該詞還有另一個意思：
a person or book that has a lot of information
博學者；萬寶全書 CN（常用作單數）
- Bob is a repository of/for football statistics.
鮑勃是足球統計資料的寶庫。
5. aggregate [ˈæɡ.rɪ.ɡeɪt] vt.
to combine into a single group or total
使聚集，使積聚
- A wife's income is no longer aggregated with that of her husband.
妻子的收入不再與丈夫的合併。
- The scores were aggregated with the first round totals to decide the winner.
此次得分與第一輪所得總分合計決出優勝者。
注：
該詞常用作被動
6. gatekeeper [ˈɡeɪtˌkiː.pə(r)] CN
someone who has the power to decide who gets particular resources and opportunities, and who does not
（有權決定誰可以得到資源和機會的）看守者
- The professors act as gatekeepers who determine which students are admitted into the competetive engineering program.
教授有權決定哪些學生可以參加競爭激烈的工程項目。
- His secretary acts as a gatekeeper, reading all mail before it reaches her boss.
老闆的秘書負責把關，所有郵件都由她先過目再呈送給他。
7. contractual [kənˈtræk.tʃu.əl] adj.
relating to or contained within a contract (= legal agreement)
合同的；和合同有關的
- contractual conditions/terms
合同條款
- Are you under a contractual obligation to any other company?
你和任何其他公司簽有合同嗎？
8.obligate[ˈɒblɪɡeɪt] vt. / oblige [əˈblaɪdʒ] vt.
to force someone to do something, or to make it necessary for someone to do something
責成；強迫，迫使
- The law obliges companies to pay decent wages to their employees.
法律強制公司向其僱員支付適當的工資。
- The law does not obligate sellers to accept the highest offer.
法律沒有強制賣主必須接受最高的出價。
注：
介紹短語：oblige sb with sth
to help someone by giving them something
提供…以幫助（某人）
- Could you oblige me with a pen and a piece of paper, please?
勞駕請給我一支筆和一張紙好嗎？
9. boilerplate [ˈbɔɪ.lə.pleɪt] UN
a way of writing or thinking that is not special and does not show any imagination
陳詞濫調
- The lyrics are boilerplate and uninspiring.
歌詞是一派陳詞濫調，單調乏味。
10. be spread (too) thin/thinly
if money, effort etc is spread thin, it is being used for many things so there is not enough for each thing
（錢、精力等）用得過於分散（而不夠分配）
- They complained that resources were spread too thinly.
他們抱怨資源使用太分散。
注：
spread yourself too thin意思是兼顧太多的事（以致沒有足夠時間或精力關注任何一個）
- I realized I'd been spreading myself too thin so I resigned as secretary of the golf club.
我意識到我做的事情太多，因此我辭去了高爾夫球俱樂部的秘書一職。
11. default [dɪˈfɒlt] UN
the thing that exists or happens if you do not change it intentionally by performing an action
默認結果，既定結果；預置值；缺省值
- Unless something else is agreed, the default is to meet at the hotel at 7.00 p.m.
如果沒有變化，按約定下午7點在酒店見面。
- The computer will take 0 as the default value, unless you type in something different.
如果不鍵入其他數值，計算機就把0當作默認值。
- [formal] In default of (= because there is not) any better alternative, we will have to proceed with the original plan.
由於沒有更好的方案，我們將只好按原定計劃行事。
語法/長難句分析
❶Data that is collected from and about our children, used by tech companies, and shared with third parties can have a serious impact on their future.
自己先試著分析：
1.主幹是什麼？
2.其他成分是什麼？
主幹：
Data can have a serious impact on their future
其他成分：
that is collected from and about our children, used by tech companies, and shared with third parties是定語從句修飾data，that指代data，在從句中作主語；其中該從句的謂語動詞是三個被動語態的並列
❷a recent outbreak of Zoombombing has led the New York Attorney General's office to open an investigation into the company's privacy practices, prompting the company to update its privacy policy and release a statement that they were implementing safeguards
自己先試著分析：
分析加粗部分
加粗部分分析：
是現在分詞作結果狀語；其中that they were implementing safeguards是statement的同位語從句，目的是交代statement的具體內容
❸Information sharing -- which happens across all types of digital tech, not just ed tech -- can have serious effects on our children's opportunities, as data is being collected and used to shape their destinies.
自己先試著分析：
1.主幹是什麼？
2.其他成分是什麼？
主幹：
Information sharing can have serious effects on our children's opportunities
其他成分：
1.which happens across all types of digital tech, not just ed tech是插入語，起到補充說明的作用，which指代information sharing，在從句中作主語
2., as data... their destinies是原因狀語，其中as的意思是“因為”
趁熱打鐵
任選上面11個詞/文中劃線部分中的1個造句，下方評論告訴我，會一一回復噠～
分享是一種動力
點贊是一種鼓勵
